In his topsy-turvy tale, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,” Lewis Carroll explores the underside of life in the chaos of Wonderland, where "everything's got a moral if only you can find it." Adults almost inevitably find that Wonderland is like life. The comically absurd situations give us a chance to laugh, which we must all do at times or die of despair.
When Alice follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, she is plunged into a place where nothing, including language, works in a familiar way. Even the traditional dimensions of orderly time and space are nowhere to be found. Desperately reciting memorized lessons, she tries to make sense of the present chaos in terms of the stable past. When Alice can no longer count on her beliefs to make sense, she first loses her security and then her identity, asking throughout her adventures, "but then ... who am I?”
Like Alice, as we face our own disorganized world, we're tempted to escape back into the reassuring innocence of childhood. Choosing to act unhampered by conventional wisdom gives us greater freedom. Still, that freedom is hard to hold onto. We have to trust ourselves even when everyone else seems to agree that we don't know what we're doing.
There are times when your freedom depends on believing in yourself, no matter what else no matter what anyone else thinks.
Sheldon Kopp in “Blues Ain't Nothing But A Good Soul Feeling Bad” - November 6
Dick Henthorn
4 Oct 2019
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