On The Color Red

I think we all have certain basics with which we came into life. There are certain chords or characteristics that resonate with us that we may know nothing about until they begin to erupt into little knowings that we can recognize. As silly as this may seem, for me one of these is the color red. Red may not seem like much, especially to non-red lovers, but when someone becomes all alight when red enters the picture, you just can’t ignore this. From the very first, when I began to distinguish colors, red called my name. Red shouted at me; red had me in its grip. Although I am fond of many colors, I can’t even imagine what might come second. Red ranks right up there with chocolate, which you can read about in my book, Essays on Everything. This love fest around a color may seem a bit nutty but it serves to remind us that the basic importances in us should not be overlooked, and there are of course more defining basics than red and chocolate…might not be as much fun, but way more telling in our lives.

What is "right"

Once we begin the learning process these basics begin to show up, even if they are inchoate at first. We aren’t born as moral beings, for instance, but as we are taught moralities some pop up as if they were waiting to be discovered. For some, learning to tell the truth will be as basic as eating and drinking. For others, lies will always come easily to their lips, and truth telling will be an effort. The business of learning about ourselves is never easy, and there can be a fine line to delineate what civilizes us and what inspires us. If we are lucky, they work well together and give our energies a fine alignment. At other times we may fight with what we want to do and what is “right” to do. This can be very tricky business. We cannot always dismiss the “right” as some artificial imposition on us when it calls to the highest senses of our humanity. It is just too bad that our choices cannot always be as simple as deciding on a favorite color.

We grow up

 Still, we can always be working on the best of ourselves all the times, even when that “best” isn’t having a very good day. This is part of our humanity at work, self correcting as we go along. I believe we grow up all our lives and work with our basic core right along. Even control freaks come to know they can’t control everything, and that people are not going to do what they would like them to do. It should be obvious that setting up armed camps against people we don’t like will not get us where we want to go either.

Light red to dark red

I fear life will never be as simple as choosing the color red. If I had my way, hens would lay red eggs; the night stars would be twinkling red; our cash money would go from light red to dark red, depending on the denominations of the bills…….



See what I mean.