Blog 705 – 07.28.2017
All The Way

When we refrain from judging I believe we are much more open to a deeper understanding of the hearts and motives of others and ourselves. Loving sets us free to find deeper meanings in everyone and everything. Music and words have always meant a great deal to me but it is amazing how often songs that I have known for most of my life speak more clearly to me now than they once did. It is also quite starling that it some cases that I have completely garbled the message and have been singing the wrong lyrics over the ones the artist intended. This is often comic but can also be really sad.

I recently saw the Marvel super hero movie, Guardians Of The Galaxy Two. Then I re-watched the first one several times and bought the soundtracks for both called Awesome Mix Volumes 1 and 2. I have been playing them over and over in my truck especially Awesome Mix Vol. 1.  I noticed after several listenings that I had for years quite muddled the words to the chorus of Track 2. I was singing “Please go away.” The actual words are, “Please go all the way.” Quite a difference, the psychology of which does not escape me. Talk about your fear of intimacy to the power of ten.

Going all the way is a euphemism for consensual sex. I find it humorous that at about the same time the song above came out parents acted shocked that such lyrics were being played, listened to, and even sung by their teens while at the same time thinking the song made a classic by Frank Sinatra and others was a beautiful love ballad, the words of which said, “When somebody loves you it’s no good unless he loves you – all the way. Happy to be near you, when you need someone to cheer you – all the way.” I think sometimes we are not really listening and certainly not really living and loving all the way.

I have shared a few times now the joke about the half-assed Native American tribe called the Semi-holes, half-assed Indians. And I mean no disrespect to my red skinned brothers and sisters. That tribe’s members, by the way, are in no way limited to any one group. We have all of us acted half-assed at times. You are having a lot of fun saying half-assed aren’t you, Dave? Yes, I am but please get the point. Life was never intended to be lived by halves, with half effort, paying half attention but like love and great sex, life is meant to be lived, all the way. We never get the most out of anything till we give it our all. That goes for everything from playing baseball to kissing as anyone who ever hit a home run, pitched a shut out, or was ever truly kissed, knows and can tell you.

In the words of a song that I has been around for forty five years and that I am finally hearing correctly, “Please, go all the way” and enjoy life and love to the fullest.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White