Timmy was bored.
At eleven years old, he liked almost anything better than sitting in class, as he was on a beautiful, early June day. Slumped at his desk, he knew the teacher was talking about something at he stared out the window, but he just didn’t care. He was getting hungry, and all he wanted was for the lunch bell to ring so he could eat lunch and play flag football with his friends.
The year was 1978. It was a simpler age, before smartphones, VCR’s, DVD’s, even personal computers. If someone wanted to call him on the phone, they would have to wait until he got home. Even then, if he were out of earshot of the phone or his mother’s summons to him, he would just have to call them back when it was convenient for him. In contrast to young people of this age in today’s world, Timmy’s was packed with peace. The cracks between electronic stimulation were wide. Walking with music playing in one’s ear was all but unheard of. If you were by yourself, you walked in silence. Unless you wanted to whistle, that is.
At his small, rural school, there were students that were selected as “AV Monitors.” It was their job to, when the teacher wanted to show a filmstrip, assemble the projector and, if they were especially lucky, turn the knob to advance each slide as the teacher spoke about each picture that flashed on the screen. Timmy had been lucky enough to be selected to be the AV monitor, and today was his lucky day.
“Timothy,” his teacher called, breaking his reverie, “would you please fetch the slide projector before lunch and set it up for a slide show after lunch?”
He grinned broadly and nodded and, without a word, jumped out of his chair as a few of his classmates—particularly his football buddies—looked at him with envy. In a minute, he was at the AV room.
As he was making his way back with the wheeled cart that held the projector, the lunch bell rang, and the hall was filled with his classmates, all headed to the cafeteria, talking excitedly among themselves. It didn’t matter; he was on a mission and he knew that if he did it well, he’d probably get to operate the projector himself, further insulating him from dreaded boredom once class re-commenced.
As he wheeled the machine into the room, the teacher asked him to set it up in the back of the class, and handed him a small, round case that contained the slides that would progress through the projector as he turned the knob. Either a pre-recorded cassette would beep each time he was to advance the frame, or the teacher would say when to do so. He liked the former way because it took less concentration.
Holding the filmstrip up to the light out of curiosity, he could see that the operation of the machine may not be enough to save him from boredom.
Biology. Ugh.
Still, he loaded the filmstrip into the machine and, after asking the teacher if she needed him to do anything else, headed to the cafeteria and the field where he and his friends would play touch football until the dreaded bell rang again.
Which it did.
When Timmy came back, class started immediately and he was, as he’d hoped, selected to operate the machine. As he suspected, the slides were not enough to keep his attention, and in the dark of the room as a pre-recorded cassette spoke of photosynthesis, his mind wandered.
What would happen, he wondered, if he could magically change the slides to anything he wanted? Now that was a thought worth thinking! Suddenly, class became interesting.
Sitting in the darkened room with his mind attuned to the ‘beep’ signal to change the slides, his imagination began to play. He imagined a filmstrip about his favorite football team, the teacher asking his opinion about this player and that, his friends arguing good-naturedly as he flipped from slide to slide, each showing—not pictures of the insides of leaves—but the faces of his favorite players. The colorful helmets would be on display, as would the cheerleaders. He was, after all, eleven, and curiosity about such things was just beginning to manifest.
From football, he moved to other things. Fishing. Hunting. Flying in an airplane. He wondered what it would be like to be talking about those kinds of things? What if he could completely arrange and re-arrange the slides so the blinding light behind it reflected exactly what he wanted?
This, my friends, is a true story.
We are all Timmy. Many of us are disgusted or bored with any number of things. Politics and politicians. Propagandized and bought-off “news” organizations. Serial pollution. Skyrocketing housing costs. Over-taxation and under-representation. Genetically modified food.
We’re all sitting in a darkened room with a great light shining—that of Life—behind slides that we’re running in front of it. What we see on the screen, manifesting in our lives, is up to us. Is it as quick and easy as changing the filmstrip?
Yes and no.
Yes, because, the instant our perception changes, our reality changes. And it is that simple.
No, because it takes five miles to turn an ocean liner—because momentum is at play. Moreover, in the middle of that long turnabout, we’re liable to be frustrated and wonder if we really are able to change the pictures on the screen. We wonder if we are picking the right picture. We wonder if it’s too damned late.
Too late for what?
What we have is the present. All we can do, in this moment, is accept that what we have is what has been chosen—and choose a more acceptable slide this second. And the next. And the next.
So, what do we want?
I want more love in this world. I see it as the underlying reality, the source of the white light of the Projector. Knowing my own sorry imperfections, I know that I appreciate it when someone cuts me some slack—so compassion is another thing I want on my slide show. I want people to have enough food, and our water to be clean. I want the animals to be able to fulfill the measure of their creation in ways that are acceptable to them, and to me. I want a world without war.
Does that mean we won’t have to exercise patience as this great ship turns? Oh, yes, if we’re speaking of turning the whole thing, of remaking a communal reality. I didn’t create this whole thing, and neither did you. So, it’s going to take a minute. More hard stuff will happen as the great turn is being made. Just be patient. Stay in the game.
Just as Timmy imagined, we have an opportunity. It’s that simple. We are all in this together, and the more we agree on the filmstrip, the more it will manifest. It turns out that a type of karmic democracy is the only real kind, so …
What do you want to project?
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Photo: Getty Images