Soul Soup for Authentic-Selves

A good friend of mine, his 11 year old daughter and I were watching Gone With The Wind aaalllll Saturday long. Remind me why we did it to ourselves…? Oh yeah, it’s epic.

As most of you know, the movie is about a spoiled Southern girl in the Civil War era who goes through a truckload of traumatic experiences and doesn’t change. If you can hold your seat for nearly 4 hours, ignore harshly rooted racism, cheesiness and previous decades' propaganda, it is a marvelous film! 

Put life’s experiences into a big cauldron of soup. Soul soup. It takes courage to hold each ingredient with the proper Love and dignity and to view it purely as another pattern of sharing and joy. Quite often rejection is good enough of a reason to hide ourselves behind mindless social masks.

If you could choose to be the very same person you were as a kid; a complete being, free of any limiting thought, your “authentic-Self”, who would you be today? If you are this person, baby, you’ve done an awesome job. I’m sure you radiate goodness and freedom and people love you.

Making an epic story into a hit is a matter of appealing to as many social groups as possible. High concept characters however, exceed time and race. Some viewers would empathize most with the suffering Vivien Leigh. Other would like Clark Gable better, a man who knows the meaning of Keep The Frame.  

One of the greatest challenges of today’s society is to put the good of others ahead of our own. The fact is that our joy is complete only when it comes from others. Any parent knows this.

It takes strong will to learn that criticism is human communication, not rejection. Always remember that reality is much broader than your perception and what you get is what you give. When you see a bit of yourself in every person, no one has a reason to hide their feelings.

A women sharing Love unconditionally makes a man adore the earth under her feet. His nature then forces him to learn compassion, to strive to make her laugh and bring color to her cheeks. He will even his dirty socks in the laundry room if that’s what she asks.

When people are caught up in their own suffering and selfish interests they end up alone over and over again. Today’s city trend of being “strong and complete” by yourself, loses its point when some people can’t share their life with another person completely.

It is only up to us to understand where we’re selfish and what we can do to change it. It’s only up to others to show us when we succeed.

Scarlett: Rhett, Rhett... Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?
Rhett Butler: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

~ Gone With The Wind (1939)