This Blog Just Happened

Leon wrote: 

Leon Lutz seeks interpretation. In a dream, he was accompanied by a woman who was familiar but not immediately identified on a number of near calamities ranging from almost missing a plane to almost being struck by a car. In each instance, Leon locked eyes with the same concerned man in the crowd. Leon finally realized that his companion was Sarah Palin as she reassuringly whispered "Todd is watching us...from a distance."

……………………….

The best thing about the dream is the God/Todd wordplay. Before I get to the interpretation though I want to ask- who is responsible for coming up with something so clever? Leon? Leon was asleep. Seemed like it just happened. (Fans of Errol Morris’s Vernon, FL know that things that “just happened” are also evidence of God’s hand in the world. Was God responsible?) Clever wordplay, yes… but I give Leon no credit.

Once back in college I was up late working on some geometry homework. There was a problem that I simply couldn’t solve. I went to bed and when I woke up I knew the answer. Seems like the answer was given to me. Maybe the solutions I figured out while awake came about in the same mysterious way, except that I was aware of it happening. Answers come in a flash of inspiration that always feels outside of oneself. Was I responsible for my homework? It didn’t seem like it. It seems like the answers “just happened.”

Did you ever misunderstand someone and what you misunderstood turned out to be interesting or funny in some way? I think that’s how terms like “catbird seat” and “crazy-eight bonkers” made their way into the lexicon. Nobody is responsible for crazy-eight bonkers, it was a misunderstanding that happened to be interesting. Crazy-eight bonkers just happened.

Writers like Steinbeck have said that when they are writing they don’t feel responsible, it seems like the words are just flowing out. Actors have said the same thing. Dustin Hoffman said that the end of The Graduate has been misinterpreted. When he breaks into the church and looks down at the congregation and bangs on the glass with his arms spread, people said that he’s a Jesus figure. He said it wasn’t the intent. Intentional or not, it just happened. And it works!

So maybe nobody is responsible for any of their acts of creation- writers, actors… parents. Maybe things are just happening. Maybe that’s why the Oscars are a sham, and maybe that’s why Dustin Hoffman’s acceptance speech for Kramer vs. Kramer was so good. In it, he recognized that it’s foolish to rate the five top performances against one another- he said they were each creations by masters of the craft, each giving something of themselves. How can you rank them?

Any act of creation is achieved by losing yourself (your “self”) in the process. The extent to which you lose your self might be a measure of how good the creation is. That’s why The Black Swan was so good, maybe the best movie ever on the process of creation. (It was certainly better than The King’s Speech, right?)

OK, so I guess you can rate works of art- that’s why The Grapes of Wrath is a better book than Twilight. Maybe they are good in proportion to how how much of the self was lost in the creation. Maybe the difference between good art and bad art is whether we are trying to make things happen, or whether we are just letting things happen.

I don’t know, but on to the dream interpretation:

Leon’s subconscious is trying to resolve contrary facts.

1) Sarah Palin wants to be the one to save the country from ruin (“calamities”) by embracing American values such as traditional families (Todd) and belief in a higher being (God,) thus the Todd/God wordplay.

But it would be a contradiction for her to be responsible AND be true to tradition American values since,

2) traditionally the wife should be submissive to the husband

and

3) “God is watching over us” but terrible things are happening- thus “the problem of evil” which has plagued philosophers and religious scholars for centuries. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere, and good- so how can there be evil? God could stop it. According to traditional American values, if evil is stopped then God is responsible, not Sarah Palin. If God is watching over us, and Todd is watching over Sarah, why is she important? (This explains her inconspicuous presence in the dream.) But she is important. Why? Leon’s subconscious hasn’t figured it out yet.

Memo to Leon’s subconscious: What if God is working THROUGH Sarah Palin? Then her act of creation (the new, better America) will be accomplished by losing her self (communion with God) in the creation. Unfortunately trying to trademark your name might be the absolutely height of egomania, so the possibility of her losing her self is out.

One things for sure- if Sarah Palin does become president, and the country comes out better as a result, that will be 100% rock-solid proof that God exists… because it will have “just happened.”

……………………………..

For those not in-the-know, my favorite quote from Vernon, FL, from the old man in the canoe:

I've never seen anything more perfect in my life than to see the perfection of God himself. You hear so much- that thing just happened. That just happened. Folks think that way all the time. "That just happened.” There was an old fellow talking to me in that house up yonder. He said, "There ain't no such thing as a God."

I said, "Mr. Day," I said, "You believe you're here, don't you?"

"Yeah, I believe I'm here. "

I said, "Do you believe any man on earth made you?"

"No, I didn't make me."

I said, "Do you believe any man on earth made Adam and Eve?"

He said, "No, I don't believe it."

I said, "What made them? How come I'm here?"

He said, "That just happened."

I said, "You saying ‘just happened,’ let's call that God. Let's give it another name and say, "That just happened."

That's what God is: just happened.