Can You Be?

Stand up in a clear blue morning until you see what can be
Alone in a cold day dawning, are you still free?
Can you be?

When the time comes that you gain perspective and start to see the world, it's dark and scary. When we're young, we imagine this wonderful freedom to go and do whatever we want. No curfews, no one telling us to brush our teeth, eat our vegetables, or stop smoking. Yeah, it's going to be OUR world...then we get into it.


And so we stand alone in the sunshine of life. As our new life as an independent person starts, we stand alone and question if we're really free.


Sure, there are no more rules put upon us by parents, but now we are trapped in routine. Can we really be free?


When some cold tomorrow finds you, when some sad old dream reminds you
How the endless road unwinds you
While you see a chance take it, find romance fake it
Because it's all on you


And it becomes all about us finding our way and dealing with the sadness of the real world. There is pain, there is anger, and there is the death of a dream. It all seems simple, but it never goes that way.


However, we are not trapped by it. It's on us to fake it until we make it. We have to make life interesting, even when the road seems neverending, even when all seems lost. We have to find the glimmer. The spark that keeps it going.


It's on us.


Don't you know by now no one gives you anything
Don't you wonder how you keep on moving one more day your way


The hardest part, however, is that we are alone. You can have friends, family, or someone who really reaches down into your soul, but those people cannot help you or be with you in the end. Your journey, your understanding is yours alone. Advice can be freely given, but no one can really take away your pain or anger or happiness, and they shouldn't. Those experiences make you the person you are. That's how you move on from day to day.


For some, it's the motivation of pain. The pain and anger they feel forces them to move to the next day. Others fight to regain that moment of happiness.


When there's no one left to leave you, even you don't quite believe you
That's when nothing can deceive you


In our solitude, the universe opens up to us to explain its mysteries. I could sit here and tell you everything I know, but you won't learn anything until you are truly alone and ready to open, ready to receive. The mind must be clear and empty. Without that, nothing can be learned. And you may feel stupid. You may feel betrayed by the quirks and works of the universe, but the mind must remain open. The light at the end of the tunnel is your decision: It's hope or despair. It's freedom or a train coming to hit you. Your choice.


Stand up in a clear blue morning until you see what can be
Alone in a cold day dawning, are you still free? Can you be?
And that old gray wind is blowing and there's nothing left worth knowing
And it's time you should be going.


Time will pass. Knowledge will come and go, and in the end, the long day's journey into night is yours alone. No one can go with you and no one can have the same experience. That's the beauty of free will. Find the way to understand the ones you love before the wind carries their ashes away forever. Let go of the hate, the frustration, because it blocks understanding and knowledge. It creates fractures and breaks life into pieces. There is no ultimate answer. There is only what we are willing to understand.



And yet all of this can be undone by the single misfiring and imperfect growth of just one cell. Just one cell.

Namaste.