So last night while some people were out watching "The Passion of the Christ" and some drinking birch beer and some making lint sculptures, I was spending quality time with teenagers, and we watched "The Grinch." ...
Hard to believe what lies under that green fur. What a talented actor. Sometimes I think I would pay to see into the off-camera lives of Jim Carrey and Robin Williams and Ed Harris and Sean Connery, all of whom happened to come up in various conversations throughout the day.
I don't mean a "Truman Show"esque fishbowl view of their private routines and family matters. I mean, I wonder what lies under the skin that's under the green fur. I wonder what makes them tick. I wonder what they have that I don't have. And I wonder what I might have that they don't.
Human beings are so complex. Even in our most authentic moments, we are walking contradictions. Have you ever used your hand to measure something and then marked out larger measurements to the scale of that by placing your hands next to one another and "walking" them in rotation? Disparity is a fascinating thing. Ever look at a dog and thank heaven you weren't made with that dog's limitations of mind and body and purpose? Graduate up the scale -- there's such a gap between a dog's capabilities and my own, no matter how limited I might feel by the bounds of my personality or ability. It makes me wonder at the possibilities -- the exponentially greater capacities that exist above the human level.
Kind of like how we look back at folks five decades ago with their black and white film and black and white television. Did they ever dream of color TV? DVD? Digital cameras and videophones? So what is it today that we aren't even capable of dreaming yet? Black and white, color, and then...exceedingly above and beyond all that we could ask or think.
Life is no act. It is no game. It is not even a performance.
I wonder -- what is the disparity between my real self and my postured conception of self?
I wonder -- what is the disparity between the now-me and what I could or might one day be?
I wonder -- if we shed one skin, will there be myriad more layers underneath to be clawed into and removed at any cost?