R is for Rest and Recreation

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Rest: Middle English from Old English; akin to Old High German rasta meaning rest, and ruowa meaning calm, and the Greek eroe meaning respite. (Rasta...It seems the Rastafarians have it right!)

Recreation: Middle English recreacion, from Middle French recreation, from Latin recreation, recreatio meaning restoration to health, from recreatus, past participle of recreare meaning to create anew, restore, refresh. Notice how the word re-create is hidden in recreation.

Rest.
We all need our sleep. There is no doubt that without good sleep we loose our ability to concentrate. Our reflexes and ability to respond quickly (like slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident) become impaired. It's a sad state of affairs, but it appears that our society is producing at worst a lot of insomniacs at best a bunch of people who don't get enough sleep. There seem to be a lot of sleep disorders and lots of drugs to help people sleep.

I don't know that drugs are the answer because I think (I don't know for a fact) that a drugged sleep does not allow one to dream. I've read enough about dreams and dream interpretation (I 'm partial to Carl Jung's approach) to believe that dreaming is important to our psyches, to our mental health. Dreams let us act out our dark emotions and fears. Without dreams I think we might be more likely to act them out in real life. Please understand this is just a Bish Theory, I have nothing to back it up with. But it seem possible. We dull ourselves with drugs of all kinds (from alcohol to crack to...you name it.) We dull ourselves with TV and video games and countless distractions. And in dulling ourselves we are fill our heads with meaningless drivel and lots of noise.

We are taking ourselves out of the world and out of our lives.

Which leads me to, Recreation.
Re-creation.
I think we need to lie in the grass and stare at clouds. Take out the earbuds and sit by a stream and listen to the water burbling. Climb a tree and listen to the birds. Dig in the dirt. I think we need to empty our minds of all the crap and look around at the beauty of this world else one day we will wake up and discover it's gone.

I think
we need
to be
still.

In stillness we will be able to sleep and be able to dream.

An aside: Click here to read an informative article for us bloggers by Chuck Sambuchino from Writer's Digest. In it he explains about the dangers of blogging certain stuff from the copy-right angle. We have to remember our ideas are not protected. And there are thieves out there. I think it's important, so I thought I'd share it with all of you, my fellow writing/blogging friends.