I’m sitting here watching Koyaanisqatsi, and all of a sudden I get an urge to write again, I had almost forgotten this blog. It’s a wonderful thing, to have a net of security you’ve forgotten about. This net saves me from a fall out of creativity. Writing is but one output for me, yesterday I met a man who was frustrated about only working and relaxing, not having a creative outlet. And then, I realized how lucky I am, to have the job I have, to have the time and the inspiration I have. Oh to be stuck in such a position as he, with a wanting, longing to create, but to lack the ideas, motivation or time to turn longing into a deep and serene sense of satisfaction.

Now that I’m looking at Koyaanisqatsi, and I’m writing; I figure might as well keep going. I thought today about how far from the future our grandparents imagined would exist in the year 2007, but after getting over the sadness of never having ridden a jetpack or had a robot do my housework. I realized that the future we live in maybe isn’t so bad after all. There is so much communication! It’s so great, connect with loved ones, people you don’t know, and learn ideas, concepts and help others learn yours. And it’s not just through the internet as most magazine articles would have you believe. The world has gotten smaller in general, more people speak the same languages, movies, books, political ideas, research, everyone is all of a sudden a cousin, and realize that airplane travel is so cheap that many many people can nowadays afford to see new places, meet new people, and travel outside the country. And plane trips do not happen two or three times in a lifetime, but rather two or three times in a year!

As I write this though, I have something missing in my wonder world of the future of 2007, I still look to the beautiful cloud-spatted sky as I walk home from the bus with a dream of one day riding a jetpack, I stop, I close my eyes for a second, go on my tippy toes, grab my backpack straps in that way that only flying can make you do, and I rise, I can’t feel the asphalt through my sneakers anymore… I pretend the breeze and moisture coming in from the ocean is me entering a gathering of clouds, stratii, nimbus, cumulus. I know it isn’t real, but they whisk my hair, I open my mouth, wedge my eyes a little tighter, and I increase the throttle. I head up above the clouds, on the border of the stratos and the troposphere, I begin to hold my breath. The sensation is getting realer and realer, I’m beginning to forget I exist at all. My hair is ruffled back and forth as I escape gravity, and my troubles desperately cling to my shoes, but I kick them off, sending them falling back to earth, a stray issue grabs ahold of a sock, and I let them go as well, now barefoot, slightly cold, some would say weaker, but I would say stronger, with a feel and a sense for where I am, no longer able to use my eyes or hearing, I feel wind speeds and air density in between my toes. I am now nothing but a highly excited and yellow-haired piece of mass trying to combat wind resistance. I begin to use my size 13’s as rudders, and as I begin to run out of oxygen, I kick my feet back. I take a bit of the cloud I exit from with me, it makes a nice trail as I make a beautiful arch across the sky, turn myself around, and look up at the stars. These lights I’ll never in my life be able to see up close. I close my eyes again in this dream, and have a spontaneous thought of dreaming within a dream is possible, it falls away from me towards the earth before I have time to think about it any further, and I begin to descend, and as I see the ground again, I see myself down there on the sidewalk, and I remember: I don’t have a jetpack, I’m not quite free, not yet, but I do hope someone invents it soon. And I continue walking on towards home, thinking that Freedom is a Jetpack.