For some reason today I thought about the line from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka tells his group of guests in his factory about the Oompa Loompas and their country and how they came to his factory: “Oh, well, then you know all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids.”
I sometimes wish that a place like the Chocolate Factory existed, and that those of us who wanted to, could go there. “
Well there’s Heaven” some people will say: “It’s a lot better than a Chocolate Factory” But, I’m not ready to go there quite yet. As the country song says: “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” That’s how I feel about it. (ok, that’s my limit for clichés and quotes for this post!)
The kind of place I am thinking about doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. As the days grow more and more dangerous during this age and in this time, there is very little a person can do to get away from the world that wants to harm them, unless you want to move to one of the islands that the “Survivor” cast have abandoned, and start using their stuff and living like them. That might be an option.
A lot of people have tried to create their own “safe haven”
Jim Jones, and his followers did. David Koresh tried.
A lot of people try to start their own Valhalla, and somehow it always seems to fail. I wonder why? Is humanity and human nature so geared to be combative and hateful to other humans who don’t “fit in” that no matter what we do here on this earth, we are doomed to fail when it comes to loving and protecting those who are different? You would like to think that wasn’t so, but tell me a time and a place where there has ever been a “Chocolate Factory” for the Oompa Loompas?
Sadly, I can’t think of any. I know that all religions promise us a place like that, of one kind or another. Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise, you name it. We have been promised the reward of these places from them all. But that’s ONLY due to us after we die, and only if we have followed the rules of the religion we have been following.
I sometimes think long and hard about the theory which some preachers and philosophers espouse, that people are living their “hell” while they are here on earth.
Some people do I think,… of their own accord.
I know there are many, many joyful things that we have while we are here. Most of the time, we don’t really see them or appreciate them while we are experiencing them, and it’s only through the backwards mirror of “nostalgia” and memory that we look back and think about what we should have done, or might have done to make things better, or to enjoy things more. That’s probably why I reach back into the past so much through my writing. It’s frustrating to not be able to just “live in the day” every day, and I know it’s often frustrating for those around me. It’s just the way I’m constructed I guess.
Maybe I didn’t get it right the first time! Damn I sometimes wish that I had another chance! But…I suppose it is what it was. There are no time machines, and no second chances. There should only be looking forward and using the past as a guideline of what not to do. Using the past as a textbook to make us wise in our old age with “experience”
I am growing more content with the things I have actually done as I get older. I still wax nostalgic and I suppose I always will, but there’s no use in beating yourself up…because I believe everything happens for a reason and that the things which DO happen are what is supposed to have happened. Does that make sense?
Forrest Gump may have had it right when he was talking to Jenny at her graveside, and said: Jenny, I don’t know if Momma was right or if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both.
Maybe both is happening at the same time.
Yet sometimes when really bad and horrific things happen to good people you HAVE to wonder why. Senseless murders, children molested, wars and killings of innocents. Good people having to suffer with horrible, painful diseases. Where was THEIR safe haven? Life just never ceases to puzzle me when it comes to things like that. Why do these things happen? What can the purpose of this possibly be?
I guess it’s all in what you seek while you are here. I think none of us, from the Pope to the Dali Llama really knows, with absolute certainty what is waiting for us.
I kind of hope I open my eyes and I am walking into this big Chocolate Factory where everything is made of candy and……there are little purple guys walking around with smiles on their faces!
Writing for Sanity's Sake 