I wonder, I wonder…

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Albert Einstein

(a local resident wondering what is this thing he has spotted in the woods/ Julie Cook /2024)

There’s a current commercial running, out there in TV land,
sponsored by the Cunard Cruise line.
The commercial begins with a man’s melodious voice…
such a beautifully accented laced voice, musing… “I wonder, I wonder…”

It’s a commercial that cuts to my quick.
I find myself either muting or changing channels when I catch wind of that wonderment.
I refuse to listen…not bothering to return to what I was watching until I know
that blasted commercial is over.

Not, mind you, because my reaction has anything to do with cruises or trips…
but rather because it has everything to do with imagining, wondering, dreaming…
along with what exactly all of that might actually look like.

Obviously to the marketing strategists behind the commercial, that wondering,
imagining, dreaming, has everything to do with you and I desiring about being on some sort of enchanted trip…ie, one of their cruise ships.
They want us to enjoy an almost mystical, magical, fabulous, ethereal sort of life.
Sipping champagne under the stars, dressed to the nines while relishing all that is
glamorous and fabulous…staring upward at the stars,
all while silently gliding over a vast sea toward never never land.

Forget any storms at sea, diverted ports of call, perilous waves,
imperfect weather, rampant cases of Norovirus running amuck, children clamoring and
darting all around…they would rather for both you and I to simply imagine something
marvelously great and grand… as we find ourselves wrapped in contentment,
serenity and peace.

However, in my case, that commercial invokes a very strong emotion.

Of which is exactly what the marketing strategists long for out of any targeted group…
the goal is that said audience experience something which evokes emotion—
a sense of the visceral.
And if that happens, then the marketing gods have done their duty.

Yet for me, that visceral emotion invoked is not the imagery of a glamorous
ocean adventure on a royal cruise line…but rather it is an almost gut wrenching
suffocating sense caused by what the voice behind the commercial is saying…
“I wonder, I wonder…”

It makes me, draws me… to the simple feat of wondering…wondering of a what could be.

The narrator in question of this particular commercial is the late Alan Watts—
who according to Wikipedia and the Spectator, was an English writer, speaker, and self-styled “philosophical entertainer” who was born 6 January 1915 and died 16 November 1973.
Watts was known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
“Watts was a sixties hippie, a Zen Buddhist pop philosopher who sought to
soothe the anxieties of the newly tuned in.”/em>

In other words, he was a leading mover and shaker in the hippie movement of the late 60’s
whose writing and voice are currently being used to promote a grand false perception
of a holiday life on a cruise ship.
A bit of a paradox really.
A hippie Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, non conformist is now a promoting money maker for a cruise line.
Philosophy promoting marketing….
Maybe we have a new subculture of something known as philosophical marketing…But I digress…
as usual.

The commercial begins with a soothing “I wonder, I wonder…
what you would do if you had the power to dream any dream…”

And what I dream and wonder about is not cruise ships or banquets or love affairs
or adventure or wishes–
not the stuff that the commercial is hoping you and I dream about
but rather I dream about two little people who are currently lost to me and who
I deeply long to find.

Thus in order to expunge some of the angst which I find myself wrapped in when I suddenly
hear Mr. Watts beginning his monologue on my television, I’ve had to do what any red blooded
21st century soul would do…
I’ve visited “mr. google”…I googled the story behind the monologue.

Here is the full text of the monologue…

Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that
you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example,
have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time.
Or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams,
you would fulfill all your wishes.
You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive.
And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each,
you would say “Well, that was pretty great.”
But now let’s have a surprise.
Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control.
Where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be.
And you would dig that and come out of that and say
“Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”
And then you would get more and more adventurous,
and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream.
And finally, you would dream … where you are now.
You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
Alan Watts

And so…it seems that the tale is rather a full circle sort of musing.
The dreams of the what if’s mixed with the realities of the what are…
Not so much dreaming about how we might desire to find ourselves
but rather dreaming of what our lives actually are…
and perhaps making that actual life better…

As a spiritual Christian who is not a Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist or hippie,
I simply think God wants us to live our lives as best we can…in the present moment.
I don’t think God wants us so much to concentrate and expel our supply of energies
on the what ifs, the could have beens, the should have beens, the only if’s…
but rather He’d prefer us to do the best with the here and now—no matter how hard sometimes that might be—while also being purposeful with those individuals currently around us…be it friend or stranger. One candle lighting the light for others.

It’s fine to dream and to hope, in fact it is often imperative that we do so,
but at the same time, I also believe we can get too mired down in said hopes and dreams,
often losing the importance of the here and now.

We simply can get stuck in all the longing.

And when we do, we lose what we actually have right in front of us…and isn’t that
the one thing we actually have some sense of control over…
that which is right in front of us?

Having thought long and hard about it, I don’t have to mute the commercial anymore.
I just go about the task of living the life right in front of me.
The one life God gave me. I might mess it up, I might make mistakes but all He asks
is that I keep trying. Live this moment to your best ability.
I’ll keep trying God.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34