In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
You never change your socks
And little streams of lemonade
Come a-tricklin' down the rocks.
Just lower your cup in the stream and draw up a cup of the finest lemonade; Nothing to worry about. No surgeon will take out your gall bladder or boss demand that you work overtime in The Big Rock Candy Mountains. There's always plenty eat and drink as we sit with gentle companions by the fire in the evening.
And I suppose that a possible attribute of enlightenment could be never having ". . .to change your socks. . ."
The hobos there are friendly
And their fires all burn bright
There's a lake of stew and soda, too
You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
Maybe paradise exists in some religious sense; maybe it does not. Perhaps, as the wise have said through the centuries, we are living in the fabled land even now, but sadly cannot realize it. I have always found this quote by Alfred Souza useful:
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Actually, Souza's words probably sum up my philosophy of life up to the current moment. Believe as you will about the after life; you have your faith. Personally, I have to be happy now; I can't wait for the possibilities of a reward later. I suppose there is nothing new here. We are so often told to live in the present. We hear this helpful, and insofar as I can tell great truth proffered so much by saviors and savants of the moment that it has become deified in the digital age.
Yet, I do not want to be misunderstood here; I am no enlightened soul. I am just like most of humankind. I long for my own personal paradise: I want the bluebird of happiness singing constantly in a beautiful Alpine meadow, complete with tiny golden flowers and sheltering evergreen trees under a great Delft bowl of a blue sky. A dappled stream flows through the meadow where I drink with the deer and bluebirds. A lovely maiden whose hair shimmers with every color of the rainbow lives with me in perfect harmony. As the old song goes:
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