5 Questions from _Storyteller_

Back by Popular Demand!
The Most Persistent of Memes
The 5 Question Interview!

1. What is the greatest lesson you ever learned from someone else?

Just a couple of days before _storyteller_ asked this question, I was musing over the three things that people had said to me that had had the greatest impact as far as lessons. ( Digression Behind Cut )

I'm going to have to go with Richard Bach, who wrote in Illusions: We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do. Most of us don't acknowledge how profoundly free we are. We may not like the consequences of choosing certain actions, but we are still free to choose. It comes back to boxes again. Our boxes are only as strong as we allow them to be. There are some actual limitations on our abilities and resources. . . but most of what limits us is our own fears and the narrowness of our vision. Bach was the one who opened my eyes to that.


2. What is your most special place, the place where you go just to think, just be, to shed your skin and relax?

I am fortunate enough to own my own home, and that is my special place. No one comes into my space without my permission. I have decorated it according to my own tastes and fancy (with some indulgence of my daughter's tastes and fancy), and it's where I go to feel safe and peaceful. In some ways, it is my skin. Or at least my turtle shell.


3. Who, in your opinion, are the three greatest thinkers to contribute to modern thought?

I'm sorry, but I don't have a clue as to how to answer this. Which tells you all something about the limits of my intellectual explorations.


4. What movie would you like to see made into a sequel? How would you want it made?

This is a hard one, since most of my favorite movies either already have sequels (LOTR), have a sequel in progress (Pirates of the Caribbean) or are complete in themselves (Moulin Rouge, Dangerous Beauty, etc.).

I'm going to be perverse and say The Empire Strikes Back, since I consider Return of the Jedi to be the beginning of George Lucas's death spiral. Empire was different from Star Wars but became more dramatic, brought a touch of darkness into the saga. Jedi had Ewoks. And deprived Princess Leia of her strength and any of the authority she had exercised or had attributed to her in the earlier movies. And then there was the gratuitous energy spent on making grotesque aliens simply for effect (Jabba's palace, the sarlacc, and etc.). I would like to make a sequel to TESB that continued the more dramatic tone, gave the characters a chance to show even more depth instead of less, and paid more attention to the characters and the political shape of the galaxy, and less to the merchandising possibilities of cute and/or gruesome aliens.


5. If you could give everyone in the world one message and have them understand it and take it to heart, what would it be?

We are the eyes and hands of God/dess in the world. Which means that if Divine love and power are to be manifested it must come through our willingness to be a channel for it. But it also means that if we do take the action our hearts know to be right and good, then Divine love and power will flow and help us make a difference. We are never alone when we act from love for the sake of others. If we all truly believed this and acted accordingly, we would transform the world.