My Subconscious Made Me Do It
When I started to write this blog, I had no clear idea of what I wanted to write. Just a strong desire to create a venue for myself. When I chose the name for this site, I had no real idea why Moving As Fast As I Can was appropriate. Clearly my subconscious was speaking. I have learned in my long life to listen when that little voice speaks. I have always believed that the little voice in my head was not my mother or father, but a smarter part of me hiding behind the day-to-day me that everyone sees.
Ok, we have either established that I have finally admitted to mental illness or I have articulated a personal truth. I choose the later. I can’t afford the therapy that he former would dictate. Is this to be a forum for my subconscious ramblings? Is a higher purpose shining through? I don’t think so. What you are reading, dear friend, is my account of how I am moving through the last third of my life. I have reached that peculiar point in life where I can clearly see my past and have some view of the end of my road. If I want to realize dreams and have a lot of fun, I better get going. I best move as fast as I can.
That’s why I bought my new car. In an earlier post I reviewed my new 2010 Prius. Yes, it’s a totally cool car. But my 2006 Prius was too; at least till it tried to kill me (yet another post). The other, probably more important reason, is that this car could be my last. It may have to be my dream car; the one from the Jetsons or Disney’s Tomorrowland.
When I was a litle kid back in the 50’s, I would wake up at the crack of dawn. We had a DuMont TV. The only programming on at that hour were documentaries like “The Modern Farmer” or “Industry in Action”. I loved those shows. I learned how crops were grown and steel forged. I became a tiny technology junkie.
I remember that I was very excited at the idea of color TV. Yes, that’s right, it was all black-and-white in those days. I was convinced that one morning I would wake up and all my shows would be in full color. One morning, I thought the banana in a commercial was yellow. I ran to my parents’ bedroom and dragged them to the TV. Alas, the 12-inch screen was still black-and-white.
Other shows would talk of the future: color TV’s, Television sets you could hang on the wall like a picture with giant screens (yes, I was obscessed with TV), cars that would drive themselves, and all sorts of other future tech. I even envisioned technology that wouldn’t arrive for decades. I remember playing with a ball-point pen. I pretended it was a two-way radio. Instead of tubes, the circuits would be printed on the ink cartridge. I think I was 10 at the time. That sounds a lot like integrated circuits. My rationalization for this leap was that it was the only way I could imagine I could afford such a device; it had to be cheaply produced so that buying it fit into my 50-cent-a-week allowance. I remember that vision vividly. It was so unlikely that such a thought would pop into a 10-year-old kid’s head. Did I see the future?
You can imagine how I felt when the first plasma TV’s went on sale. My little kid dream was right there in front of me. It took me a few years to afford a $2,500 TV set. But when I did, I took it home, hung it on the wall in the bedroom, hopped onto my bed and became the little kid seeing his dream come true. That may be what kicked my subconscious into telling me it was time to make the connections.
We all travel through time. At some point, I realized that the journey isn’t a smooth path from birth to death. The road bends with irony; rises and falls with success and failure. Time moves, but not at a steady speed. A day is a lot shorter now than it was when I was ten. If I want to catch up. I really do need to move as fast as I can.