- Humans are very complicated beings.
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- Like pretty much everyone I know, I like to get my information
quickly, even when it's about other people. Often, I find myself looking
at folks I don't know and deciding that I understand them completely based
on how they carry themselves, how they talk, and, yes, how they look.
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- Invariably, if and when I get to know people better,
I find out I was wrong.
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- I discover that what's on the surface is deceiving, and
that there are sides to this particular man or that particular woman that
I never could've imagined until I'd spent time with them. Until they'd
become part of my life, and I part of theirs.
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- That doesn't mean that I've figured them out. It just
means I'm now aware of more sides. More depth. More complexity.
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- And, as a result, more mystery.
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- The human being who's the biggest mystery to me is the
one I should know best. The one I do know best - but still not well enough.
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- Yes, I'm talking about myself.
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- Larry B.
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- What brings this on are two dreams I had recently. The
first was two nights ago. The second was last night. In some ways, they
were the same, but in others oh-so-very-different.
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- In the first dream, I was at a Hollywood gala mingling
with the stars. A Network President came over to me and told me how glad
he was that I was there. I knew this particular Network President years
ago, and the experience wasn't as pleasant as it could've been, so his
smile put me on guard. I waited for him to say or do something that would,
well, that would wipe me out.
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- Instead, he offered me a job. "I want you to create
and run a series for us," he said. "Call my private number after
the party and we'll pin it down."
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- As the Network President walked away, I felt a mixture
of elation and fury.
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- My elation came from being invited back into the game
I'd left in disgust about seven years ago.
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- My fury came from my feeling of elation.
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- "What's wrong with you?" I asked myself. "Why
get so excited when you know he's probably lying? And why get so excited
about something you've said time and time again you don't want to do anymore?
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- "Because "
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- "Yes ?"
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- "Because I do want to do it. I didn't know till
now."
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- In last night's dream, Gwen the Beautiful and I were
here in Paradise, driving to a nearby university where I was going back
to school to get my Ph.D. in "practical stuff."
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- I was going to study carpentry and plumbing and planting
and animal husbandry and be the best farmer, gentleman or otherwise, Paradise
had ever seen.
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- As we pulled into the university parking lot, I felt
a mixture of elation and puzzlement.
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- My elation came from the fact that I was about to spend
several years learning what I wanted to know more than anything else in
the world.
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- My bewilderment came from - that's right - my feeling
of elation.
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- "What're you so happy about?" I asked myself.
"You're 62 years old and going to school. Instead of being the wise
man you're just another ignorant student face in someone else's crowd."
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- "Because I'm fine with not having to act like I
know it all," I answered. "I'm happy to learn. And, no, I didn't
know that till now."
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- Two different dreams. Both filling me with excitement.
One bringing with it a case of rage, the other a pallet full of bewilderment.
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- Both dreams coming from Larry B. Are they about my ambivalence
about my life? Do they symbolize the duality of all human nature? Or have
I missed something else?
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- I haven't got a clue.
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- I may never have one.
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- Human nature is more complicated than most of us ever
acknowledge. We love and we hate - the same things at the same time. We
want this and we want that - completely different things - at the same
time.
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- We love ourselves and we aggravate ourselves to pieces
- at the same time.
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- Life's easier when we can keep it simple. When we can
say, "He's this," and "She's that."
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- But I'm finding that it's a whole lot richer and more
challenging when I look at those around me and say, "I've got to keep
searching for who we all really are."
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- Mysteries exist to be worked at, even if they can't be
solved.
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- c. 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
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- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org. Brody, his wife and their dogs,
cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County, Arkansas. The other residents
of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination.
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