Open the Door

Are you willing to open the door to your future?

Are you willing to do whatever it takes?

Are you willing to step through the door to the other side?

Are you willing to explore the unknown?

The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Do we simply see the world with our own perception in that we see whatever we want life to be?  Or, do we see life through the perception of others who have influenced us?

How much do we influence ourselves and how much do others actually influence us?

When young we were influenced by our parents and our siblings.  As we aged, by other students and after a few more years we were influenced by professors and still later by employers and/or the various social groups to which we belonged...

But whose doors of perception did we actually walk through...  ours or theirs?

We hear the word infinity but we do not really understand it...  just as we do not understand death and what happens to us afterward....  as it seems rather pointless to live 80-100 years and then it all be over when life and our universe are infinite...

Perhaps, we don't even want to open the door to perception...  afraid to see what we might find...

ONE THING IS FOR SURE...  THIS IS OUR LIFE AND NO ONE ELSES...

Jim Morrison... the Poet

From the official website of Jim Morrison...

“Nothing else can survive a holocaust, but poetry and songs. No one can remember an entire novel. No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting. But so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.” – Jim Morrison

I think the self-interview is the essence of creativity. Asking yourself questions and trying to find answers. The writer is just answering a series of unuttered questions.

I guess I see myself as a conscious artist plugging away from day to day, assimilating information.

I think around the fifth or sixth grade I wrote a poem called “The Pony Express.” That was the first I can remember. It was one of those ballad type poems. I never could get it together, though. I always wanted to write, but I always figured it’d be no good unless somehow the hand just took the pen and started moving without me really having anything to do with it. Like, automatic writing. But it just never happened. I wrote a few poems, of course.

Like, “Horse Latitudes” I wrote when I was in high school. I kept a lot of note books through high school and college and then when I left school for some dumb reason — maybe it was wise — I threw them all away. There’s nothing I can think of I’d rather have in my possession right now than those two or three lost notebooks. I was thinking of being hypnotized or taking sodium pentathol to try to remember, because I wrote in those books night after night. But maybe if I’d never thrown them away, I’d never have written anything original — because they were mainly accumulations of things that I’d read or heard, like quotes from books. I think if I’d never gotten rid of them I’d never been free.

Just Chillin'

I recently found an online radio station that play CLASSIC ROCK 1964 to 1971 and it reminds me of my transition from High School in Cairo, Egypt to College in North Carolina to the US Navy in Norfolk, VA all of this during the peak of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Woman's Liberation Movement where everyone spent a lot of time and energy burning bras, drinking a little wine, and smoking a little weed.  My time in the military did little for me except allowed me to buy stereo and camera equipment at wholesale prices and burned into my mind that NOT WANTING TO BE IN COLLEGE had been a monumental mistake.  However, the time I did spend in the military provided me with the GI BILL and I finished my BA and MBA degrees without costing me ONE DAMN CENT except my time spent in class and studying and driving to and from campus.

I remember arguing with my College Advisor about my Senior Thesis (yes...  back in the 60's seniors had to write a thesis in order to graduate and receive a BA degree) and how he thought there was not enough substance with my idea.  I had wanted to take the following groups:  The Beatles, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Byrds, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and The Band and taking ALL THEIR SONG LYRICS analyze them using all the approaches that my English Degree had taught me to use when analyzing the great works of literature including prose and poetry.

This might have been the main reason why I left college and enlisted in the Navy...  I cut off my nose to spite my face...  it seems.

And...  when I returned to that same college, a senior thesis was no longer required...  PISSER...

My English degree did very little for me except open the door to management positions because I had earned a 4 year degree.  My first position was DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT EFFICACY FOR A MICROBIOLOGICAL MEDIA MANUFACTURER...  WTF...  but, a job is a job.

It's a frigging FLAAAAASHBACK....  The Doors...  Light My Fire...

The Devil's End