Downtown Coffee Shop Full Of Actors
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| What do you see? Only one thing? How many different things do you see? |
A certain coffee shop downtown has a wide variety of clientele.
Coffee shops are quite the magnet for the cultural plurality found in many places on earth.
This particular downtown has homeless (abject poor) and millionaires / billionaires walking past each other as many other downtowns the world over.
When they all enter the coffee shop, they all breathe the same air.
They do, after all, share the same basic components of life within them, but it seems it is their mind's ideas and their heart's current temperament which has them perceive anything but similarity.
Not too often can the wealthy be identified from the poor.
One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.
- Proverbs 13: 7I can't help but ponder how some people must be pretending to have or to be.
I used to pretend to have and be more than I actually was.
It is reasonable why one would pretend to have little to nothing, which is what I now do.
But what are we?... becoming?
There are different professions (and arguably non-professions) that visit this particular coffee shop.
I mention non-professions because although one 'profession' may not be recognized as dignified, or legal, whatever someone does to earn their meat is their profession, their occupation; what they profess to 'do' or 'be' for a living.
There are professional thieves amongst us...as their are professional liars.
We all profess to have, to be and to do something.
A professional liar is like an actor (sorry actors).
People working verbal communication in radio, film, television, entertainers, etc., putting on a mask for a 'role' they are paid to do or speak.
There's always something being sold, even if money doesn't exchange hands.
Ideas are also peddled as if they can be sold.
Haven't we all acted in one way or another?
It is no surprise we see actors become politicians, or a politician performing a great acting role.
An actor, just like a politician, is to profess not so much their own personal thoughts, but the thoughts they've been handed in a script or a policy.
The difference between a court jester and the king is one of them has to be careful 'how' they tell the truth (if either ever do).
One tells the truth in a specific manner (delivery) to evoke a humorous, yet sobering, response.
The king speaks the truth as he sees it and doesn't fear repercussions for lack of humor.
The king's sobriety is honored, his judgment wisely revered.
The fool's humor speaks some truth intermingled with the absurd.
How many times have we played the fool instead of a noble of the court?
Is every 'act' we put on morally or ethically wrong?
The greatest of actors are those who despite what they believe in their heart are able to convincingly speak a contrary message with their lips.
But what of those who desire to follow what seems impossible to do?
What about those laws, platitudes and moral heights that challenge our very flesh when we consider obeying them?
'Love your enemy' comes to mind.
How difficult it is to love (and further: forgive) those who hate you, those who desire you to be dead a thousand times over.
Lawyers, criminals, police officers, prostitutes, drug users, office clerks, drug pushers, entrepreneurs, laborers, trust fund babies, wards of the court and more titles and labels from practically every ethnicity and tribe of life under the sun walk through the doors of this downtown coffee shop.
Hourly wage earners, salaried professionals, retired pensioners and food stamp recipients along with people who feed themselves by doing any kind of despicable activity enjoy a cup of coffee here.
But what is despicable for someone is an honored profession for someone else.
Do these titles and labels actually 'make' a person?
For some people, it is the very core of their identity; they embody the idea quite strongly.
Are not all of these titles and labels merely 'acts' being professed and played out every day?
Was the lawyer, or murderer, or _________ (enter a good or bad title) such a thing when they were kids?
There was a time all of us were children starting to learn how to speak and express our desires.
Mommy.
Daddy.
Milk.
More.
Mine.
There is one title we all had in common: children....we were at one time all children.
Why did we cease being children?
Age?
We simply got older and shed our common identity of being human children?
Have you ever seen an older person 'act' or 'sound' like a child?
Did they 'forget' they were an adult, or did they simply reveal their inner self...or something else?
Depending on our parents, their position in life and their level of education and aspirations for us, we we heard certain words spoken towards us.
Words that may have built us up from a strong foundation, or did little to build and more to destroy...and several points in between.
These words formed our budding conscience and began forming our identity and definition of ourselves.
Some of us may have heard “you're the best” and “you're so smart” and when we were corrected, even the corrections were more along these lines.
Others of us may have heard “you're so f-----' stupid” and “you'll amount to nothing”, and any praise may have been either drowned out by such lines.
Some of these words fell into the deep crevices of our hearts, soul, mind and subconscious and formed us.
Some other words, by some manner not easily explained, didn't take root.
Sometimes we can't help but remember only the 'bad' things that happened at some time in our lives, or when in the presence of certain people.
Other times, we can't remember anything bad, but only good and better words, times and things.
For all us, the individual needs to be born again; building anew and enriching a fertile ground, supplanting the prior thistles planted by others.
A return to being like children, that one title we all were without doubt.
This is a lot of what I really see when looking at all the people in this downtown coffee shop.
Children still carrying the words of their parents / adults from their childhood...nor projected into their adult lives.
It could be argued that those who are accused for a crime across the street may have heard (and retained) more spite than praise, and experienced more depravity than glory, as children.
Across the street is the city's court house.
Laws are not made there, simply enforced.
The breaking of the law has financial and social consequences.
Financially, it will cost you money if you're convicted of breaking the law.
Socially, the more grievance crimes (and/or if you lack money) will have you moved into public housing (jail or prison) for a time.
The business of law enforcement takes place across the street.
I call it a business because the professionals employed there receive their income from the same source the convicted pay into.
What is quite the paradox is that although a child may have had a lawless upbringing, they may become lawful and eventual authors of the law.
The opposite can also paradoxically occur; the child with a lawful upbringing can become the worse of lawbreakers.
Today's judge can become tomorrow's convict, and today's convict tomorrow's judge.
During court proceedings both the beneficial party (employees of the court) and liable parties (criminals) interact in a formal manner, following court protocol.
Between court proceedings, both parties (and all others participating or witnessing) make their way across the street to this coffee shop.
The acting continues beyond the courtroom, but less formal.
In this space, they are all patrons of a coffee shop...children buying their favorite flavored coffee.
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