My favorite time to just BE is that time when you're half...no...THREE QUARTERS asleep. This is where and when I feel most in touch with the other side (or all sides...or, at least, more sides than usual). I mean, come on...you KNOW those aren't JUST dreams...you KNOW your cubicle or your living room or your backyard isn't your whole world.
It's a nice place to be. I think Neil Gaiman, writer of the SANDMAN series, writes mostly in this state. Cats sleep 3/4 of their lives, so they probably have the most experience with navigating it. I imagine that's what they're chasing when they suddenly dart into the next room...or stare at "nothing". Whatever current stresses and connundrums plague my waking mind are, for a time, whittled away to meaningless trifles...or, better yet, they are transformed into strange backdrops to ongoing subplots in a surreal storyline that I sort of melt into. In this venue, priorities and issues of importance are shuffled around in such a way that I cannot possibly guess what's happening next. I guess that's why it's such a thrill when I see a movie that knows what it's doing even though I have no idea where it's going. It's following one of these "sub-lucid" plot schemes, I just know it! Soon I'll be in on the secret language and I'll be able to spot the other in-the-know-travellers and, with a wink or a gesture, share a moment of shared awareness and comraderie. Just like Pirates!
So, then...like I wasn't saying...
Today in one of these sleep/wake states, I realized that, as I get older and continue to watch the world evolve, the trend seems to be inching towards cliche. All those old, cheesy plots...they're coming true. In terms of the "masses", people generally don't like to think too much about their entertainment. They don't like a challenge when they're expecting to be placated with something...well, cliche. Familiar. The age of psycho-Manifest Destiny is NOT upon us, for the most part, is it? I feel like I should challenge myself more...condition...set up good habits of creative outletting. But I'm so tired...too tired to even get to a POINT tonight...ZZzzzz...