A Dream in the Middle of the Summer

I forget how much I love plays when I don't see them for so long.

I have just finished this version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and reminded myself how charming it can be. Though I have seen it a million times over, Puck never fails to make me smile, Hermia and Lysander always make me feel like true love can survive, and Shakespeare makes me think that somehow, where we're not looking hard enough, fairies, fauns, and other creatures we claim not to exist are partying it up.

Warmness has flooded me. Feels wonderful, actually. I wonder at how the entertainment industry [which is such a nasty word] has become so ugly. Sure, there are still movies and music that inspire awe, but it feels like I am trudging for a tooth in the snow when I go to Blockbuster or to a record store. I feel like the world has become one monstrous, slobbering junkie, addicted to sex and drugs, constantly being kept alive by new technologies coming out every second.

It feels like there are no quiet places left, no families that dine together, no children that aren't taught about everything they shouldn't know by the time they are in the fourth grade.

Sometimes, I feel saddened by it, let down by how degrading the whole world is. But then I feel like I am making a generalized statement and remember that there are still Tibetan monks who sit and mediate for half of their lives in the pursuit of peace and happiness. I think of plains in Africa where air isn't clogged by lung-killing smoke, cottages in Switerzland, or some other exotic snow-covered hill where it seems like sound never existed and all there was and ever will be is white.

I want to travel to these places and feel full.