Does anyone remember "Bed Knobs & Broomsticks" ?
I'm going to talk about why I named the blog reactionary locomotion.
Locomotion is self-propelled movement. 'Reactionary' is defined as doing something in opposition to another way of doing it that you don't like.
Put them together and you have the makings of a steam engine or my current state of being. So what is driving the steam engine? Combustion. My own combustion is the way that I typically process the mix of life...i.e. pressure chamber style.
I think the biggest challenge, and listen to me, I think this is the biggest challenge of life in general: Retaining, or being able to sustain enough of your unique blend of energy that keeps you authentic. I know I spent a great deal of time growing up daydreaming about who I'd become, what I'd do, where I'd go, what I'd look like, who I'd meet... possibilities were endless. They still are but the difference is the daydreaming to problem solving ratio.
Very recently I asked a friend of mine who I absolutely think is one of the most brilliantly talented people I've ever known a simple question... The question was this: What is next for you? This friend of mine gave me some tragic answer that drove a knife into my solar plexus. It sounded like a "I give up" answer. I know that isn't true but maybe in someways I was directed to ask that question in order to prompt a response that wasn't audible...i.e. I believe this friend probably did some thinkin' after our talk.
In the past 2 weeks I've had some strange occurrences come a' rollin' my direction. This is nothing unusual for me, but what was unusual was my reaction to all of it.
For example... Within 2 days of each other, I met two different unrelated people who struck up a conversation with me that made me shift in my chair from being emotionally uncomfortable. I didn't know it at the time of the conversation but they were both well-known psychics. No matter what you believe or don't believe about that... the information that rolled out of their mouths was so shockingly specific and secret that only I know how to process it and I know that they were directed to me because I was SUPPOSED to hear some of the things they said. I won't get into the details of all that because it would incriminate me and it will stir up a hornets nest of controversy.
So... that being said or unsaid I'd like to say that the pressure chamber/combustion cylinder I put the data of life's many signals in, is needing a good scrub down. A lot of residue is on the walls of my combustible brain.... in more words... My engine has overheated too many times and now needs a closer look.
I looked.
What I saw was horrific. (for me anyway) I saw that I'd been so busy pressing onward that I had forgotten how to read the signs that said "dangerous curves ahead," or my favorite, "slow down. Dip in the road."
So... that movie, "Bed knobs and Broomsticks,"... the opening of the movie you see Angela Lansbury's character who is a secretive type person who has shut herself off from being truly emotionally close to anyone in particular because she is a "serious scientist/wizard" and has a goal that has overtaken her.... In this scene in the very beginning of the movie where her character is being established, you see her riding a motorbike that looks similar to the one Jack Black rides in "Nacho Libre." In otherwords, a real hunk of shit on wheels. She is driving this thing in the most spazzy way you can imagine Angela Lansbury doing anything physically demanding. Her gait or walk is fast, nose up, and pressing onward in a military type fashion to get done her daily "go to town" errands. If you've seen the movie you know that she ends up getting manipulated into temporarily taking 2 children who are being sent there because of the war. She pleads with the Yoda-ish crazy old lady from the church that she is not suited to watch children... The lady reminds her that she has a huge house, lives alone, and in a nutshell says, "yeah well you're taking them."
So.... we find out that Angela Lansbury's character secretly practices witchcraft because she thinks she might be able to help the war effort if only she could get this one last spell from her mentor via vocational witchcraft school... she's never met him but she's invested a great deal of money and time and energy into putting to practice his methods. The bratty kids of the movie end up becoming the distraction she needed in order to actually KNOW how to put to use her own power and she saw the "wizard of oz" i.e. her mentor/teacher was nothing more than a scam artist peddler who was trying to make a buck. She eventually embraces his inadequacies and together they win the fucking war. Whatever... But they used a spell that made inanimate objects locomotive...the reactionary response was "oh it works" but "oh shit how can we control something that is self-propelled and on a course for chaos?" The museum held artifacts of metallic/bronze soldier uniforms so... she put to good use (made them animated and alive in a robotic sort of way) they became unruly and terrifyingly destructive. She wasn't able to stop them initially, but then mustered up the mojo to reverse what she had done.
I was always fascinated with the idea that the "pressure chamber of your life" could thrust you into a instantaneous belief of "I can" which then becomes self-directed action. After the result of that level of self-directed action- you are different, a more superior version of yourself. It's alchemy. An alchemist has to use extreme heat, pressure, more heat, more pressure, and then has to stabilize the new creation with a cool down period. The result of what once was; will forever be what is. It's new. It's stronger. It's more valuable. Of course in some cases the creation becomes extraordinarily priceless depending on what elements were used and the courage it took the alchemist to "see what happens."
I know this blog is sort of all over the place but I'm trying to type out an abstract thing which is always hard to do. (for me anyway)
I've also been interrupted about 100 times while writing this...
Anyway... My point? If anyone is going through a real pressure chamber of life right now, just remember that you can direct it with action that stems from an organic intrinsic nature that is specific to you and the outcome will be something that is more valuable, stronger, and extraordinarily priceless to your locomotion of life.
