Y ... You

Can’t do without.. (fill the blank).. That’s the tag line for how many commercials? We know it’s a lie. It exists in harmony with the other favourite line.. Do What You Want.. It’s Your Life, even though I seem to detect a clash there. Are we dependent or independent?

I can. Actually, I can do without a whole lot of stuff.. Papa’s pizza, mama’s Best Recipe’s book, XYZ insurance, this gizmo, that gadget. Despite the advertising claims that I really, really need those.. I don’t.

But I do need You. My Other. That main squeeze or BFF, the person who tells me I’m OK. You, I really do need. We’d like to think it’s possible to be completely independent. But humans can’t exist in isolation. We’re relational creatures. We form relationships with our own species, other species, even plants and inanimate objects. We’re part of a complex ecosystem, our every action affecting other life. But it’s the People ones which count the most. The relationships we form are like spider webs criss-crossing our existence. Perhaps they look messy, but they are our lifelines.

Purpose in life is found along the lines of relationships we build. Opportunities arise with every new thread, and no matter whether we try to preserve or break those connections, our decisions reverberate outward, touching more lives than we even realize.

I can’t. Actually, I can’t do without .. You.

Oh I love the way you say it doctor!

Oscars only ostrich oiled an orange owl today..

If I make a list of the people who most influenced me as a child, it would have to include Dr Seuss. A quick look at wikipedia tells me he was Theodor Geisel, produced 44 children’s books and won a pulitzer prize. What, only 44? I had expected to find hundreds. I must have read the whole lot then. I went to places like Pompelmoose Pass, the island of Gwark and the country of Motta-fa-Potta-fa-Pell, chasiing Poozers, visiting Sneeches, marvelling at the Tufted Mazurka, and Fiffer Feffer Feff. C’mon, what an imagination!

My life is still a little like a Dr Seuss book. A combination of sense and nonsense, a river of words many of which are not found in any dictionary, and a love of funky individualism. If you can learn to recite ‘I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew’ you will not only have done a great deal of excellent exercise with your tongue and lips, but will have learned some fabulously bodacious new words and a sensible life lesson to boot.

Childhood is a long way off now. Can you think of what influenced you way back then? Mum, Dad..sisters, brothers, those are a given. What else? Teachers? A coach? A film star? Friends? Taking a look at the small stitches that knit us up can be a surprising revelation of how just a few hours or few words made a lasting deposit. Who knows what makes certain people or events stick in our minds? Sometimes just a short unexpected connection with someone leaves us impacted right into adulthood. Good or bad. And it never stops. We take new things on board every day.

And that means...yes me, yes you. We’re not Oprah, Orwell or Obama, but we still influence other people, probably without even knowing it. Authors like Dr Seuss are well aware that they make an impact, no doubt they write with that well in mind, but I don’t think most of us are aware that unless you’re a hermit, just about everything we do affects others. Perhaps it seems like a big responsibility to bear. It’s certainly something to think about considering that modern motto: “Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” ... I’d be happy to change that motto to “Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t affect anybody else.”

Live obstinately or obediently..  or ostentatiously, outrageously, originally, orderly, openly, or outstandingly, or omnivorously... do it your way... but...

Know that it does matter. Ok? ;)

Taken from Dr Seuss's ABC