As I came home, my roommates were hard at work… living the life of Riley and painting to their hearts’ content in the setting sun.

A quick set of snapshots, and voila… I share with you.

About This Dream of Theirs…

They were born with their desire to paint, draw, create artworks. A natural genetic proclivity to do precisely what it is they do NOW. They brought their childhood dreams with them to adulthood.

Now I wasn’t born with a dream, or, if I was, I’ve forgotten.  Could it be true, that we’re all born with this DREAM thing? I don’t think so…

I read this story about a world class violinist who used to stretch rubber bands across two dresser knobs and twang them. We all know the rest of THAT story. He became his dream. He became the major twanger of all twangers.

Me? I never strung rubber bands between two anything. What I DID do was clunk my Barbie dolls heads together and tossed them around like boomerangs.

Didn’t like those skinny little plastic twits.

I used to LOVE to write on blackboards. Ahhhh…. I could be a Blackboard writer.

What else?

Draw horses. All day long, draw draw draw horses. But, my drawings are exactly the same as they were when I was 7. No better!

Let’s see…

I really loved birdwatching early in the morning. And collecting caterpillars in little index card boxes with leaves and water.

i really hate to do that now.

My favorite thing of all was playing outside and running amongst wild woodland and mountain paths, jumping into turquoise pools of fragrant clean water, climbing huge tall branchy lofty trees until the ground grew distant as the the moon from Earth.

Last time I looked, no one was looking to hire a running jumping mountain path hopping 8 year old.

But… upon some reflection… as a tiny little babe, my mother observed me crudely typing on her keyboard sharing thoughts, trivia and observations in a foggy bloggy kind of way.

?

:O

Tags: childhood, Dreams, growing up, roommates

Just read an article about a number of people who will be facing the end of their unemployment benefits.

It struck me how willing they are to work at just about any job from shoveling horse poop to putting in fence posts to cleaning rain gutters, and what a versatile group of people and a large manufacturing base we have here in the US.

These are earnest people willing to work very hard for very low wages. One can imagine they will work strong and long for decent wages to pay their bills and feed their families.

Is is location? Do they avoid entrepreneurship? Do they believe they can only work for others? Are they right?

I often thought that in the most desperate times, I might do what I did as a kid…

I had gotten these little index cards, folded them in half, drawn a little picture on each with magic markers. I then made little matching envelopes and wrapped each pack in plastic wrap, taking them door to door selling them for a dollar - and believe it or not, quite a few folks bought them.

To this day I love to make handmade cards but simply don’t have the time. Going door to door? I suppose only a kid finds that fun.

Another thing I did was create neck chokers with black velvet and an array of gemstones glued to the center. They were extremely beautiful and people loved them. They also all flew out of the nest.

And then someone had shown me burlap and felt banners hung on wooden dowels, and I became quite adept at cutting out letters and pictures, pasting them attractively, sewing in the dowels…

Now that I think of it, I would add jewels, gems and pretty bits to make spectacular banners…

Anyway, all sold.

Something happened between then and now…

Somehow I got caught up into the Get an Education gambit. So off to school I went where I learned that teachers and professors come from a very ancient place… the place behind the “8 ball.”

They attempted to teach me how to become an obedient corporate clone, able to take voluminous volumes of inconsequential knowledge and turn it into more of the same. Please, no offense… just a humble opinion that stands only for today. Totally changeable. Okay?

All those childhood ideas went by the wayside… and now I just stick to Web and Computer stuff. Yes, I dropped out of school.

The truth is… had I stuck it out with my childhood projects and let the natural evolution flow, I’d probably be quite successfully, “richer.”

Had a million ideas as a kid, (Don’t we all?) each one “better” than the next… as far as just being simple ways to go out and make money quickly.

LESSON: “Somehow we lose something so pure and fine as we become adolescents and grow up. There’s a time to go back, reconnoiter, re-evaluate, and remember the things of childhood that stood us good stead. It’s easy to lose sight of the simple entrepreneurial ways to make a living that a child might dream up.”

One more thing… so far, I haven’t EVER met a person who didn’t have a gift that could help them stand out from the crowd.

Finding it? That’s another story… I’m thinking it takes others to cajole it out of us. Either parents, friends, family.

Friends are invaluable. People are invaluable to one another.

Tags: benefits, childhood, friends, invaluable, losing hope, unemployment, working hard