Dylan Knew

“I was so much older then, I am younger than that now”, or something like that from Dylan, but then I drift to Bob Dylan’s Dream and understand again that whatever I knew at any point in my life was going to be “exceeded” in some way so long as I paid attention to the path I was discovering in every moment of awareness. As I have age, it appears to me that I took my almost constant awareness for granted, but I have discovered that it does not apply such to most people.

That is an entire side bar, so let’s just set that aside.

As I have aged, I have more and more realizations about what makes me different that everybody else. We are all such, different that is, but we, perhaps, find solace, comfort, peace, etc. by aligning with others around us, at least on some level such that the difference may not stand out with others. My instinct, however, caused me to accept that I was measurably distinct from those around me. Further, my instinct made me extremely different as “it” was always looking for a better path if one seemed to be needed or merely appeared. Thus, I was always writing a new story instead of just following along.

Anyway, I now see that adhering to what is promoted around me was never my thing, even from my first remembrance of consciousness, say age 4 or so. I had the measles really intensely with a fever over 104 for several days. In those days, you just stayed in a bed in your home and sweated it out. I was visited daily by my uncle, who became a doc as the result of the GI Bill, and my parents, and they would talk in my presence not realizing that I could hear it all. I couldn’t move or open my eyes, but I could hear acutely and my brain had nothing else to do. So, it made an honest evaluation of what it heard and put that data in its hard drive. After they left, I would drift off to a dream land, playing two distinct scenarios over and over, much like the book where the character is first small, then large, or vice versa in order. I had those dreams repeatedly during the bed time and I had never been exposed to the story prior to my mind doing it on its own on some level.

So back to Bob. I now realize that all my friends along the way largely put up with me being very much one of a kind. I didn’t realize that at all during my life. I didn’t realize how easy things were for me, even in a brand new situation at moments of decision making. Plus, in physical settings of all kinds including organized sports and stuff just happening when in the woods or walking an alley, both in the day time and at night. I just took all that stuff for granted to the extent that I was surprised to hear, late in life, that I had always been despised by classmates and teachers because it was so easy for me.

I had to leave go of a long time friend some time ago, and he is a guy who had ridden the train going west with me for a number of switches on the track, like in Dylan’s Dream. That departure was noted by both of us and others around us. Many other departures just seem have happened in a natural course of the fact that my instinct is always choosing a new path if the moment suggests or demands such.

I have seen many photos and videos of friends and acquaintances who have taken the vacation trip involving a ship in all parts of  Europe in the past half year, some including Asia in that adventure. The views are great and the experience looks great, but I find my instinct placing me more in the moment of where I am, not what can I do with my time. I am actually glad that I don’t travel by plane much any more, though I was once a Diamond member at Delta and had that platinum credit card that gets you in any airport lounge. The people I met on the streets of all the places I visited are not unlike the people I run into every day here (since my paradigm is not the country, tennis, boat or gun club).

So listen to these old Dylan songs and wonder, why don’t the majority of people hear his other song that told us then, “The answer is blowing in the wind.”

Anyone else riding on this bus?