Reverb: Are there any prompts or questions that arose during #reverb10 that are still resonating in your life? Are you living new questions?

Reverb 10 whispers through my mind often.

Dandelion Blowing - WonderI look at key words which bring people to Thin Difference, and I see the words such as “blowing dandelions.” I think “that’s odd. Why are people searching for that?”

And then I see keywords like “developing a personal philosophy” and “living a June Cleaver life” and I wonder “what is going on out there?”

I think about where Thin Difference is really going as well as discovering my voice in it. I think about my Reverb post about leading a multiplistic life and how I feel more alive today than I have for a while. I found out that it is OK to live outside the norm a little and to expand my outlook.

I learned that writing is my friend and that excites and scares me both at the same time.

My mind seems like that blowing dandelion sometimes…. thoughts dancing in the wind, scattering across the prairies, hoping that something takes hold and spreads.

I think about what the “perfect” families looked like on TV when I was a kid and realize, looking at my own, how much things have changed. Technology has advanced, but families have taken a step backwards, too plugged in to an electronic world in which we lose touch with the personal, real world.

I am sure families thought then that rock-and-roll was pollinating our families with seeds of weeds which would threaten all, just like in the movie Pleasantville.

Reverb. A perfect word. The thoughts of those thirty days still clearly ring in my mind, wondering where the next seed may land and take sprout.

While some things seem hazy, others are clear.

I realize that the focus of Thin Difference is clearly on life choices and how choices really drive who we are and what we become.

I realize that having a personal philosophy is core to our being; it is how we become the best person we can. Without one, we are shapeless, wandering from one place to another with no clear purpose or direction.

So, here I sit in my bed at 1:10 am, writing, trying to clear my mind. Family concerns weighing on me; the unknowing if you are doing the right things in raising your kids, dealing with the anger as they try to find their way as well. The thought that I only wish I could sit down with them sharing what I have learned and trying to guide them – not tell them – what to consider, what to do next.

How can you tell a teenager they need a personal philosophy? How can you tell them that you love them so much that you only want what is best for them? But they need to take the right steps to make the right choices.

Life is like that blowing dandelion. Maybe that is why people are searching… wondering how the dandelion can bloom and then fade into white pieces of fluff which take flight at the slightest breeze.

There is hope in that image, because if that white fluff falls in the right place at the right time, then life will generate anew. It continues in a different place and, maybe, in a different way.