I need a vision

by Joshua Murphy – 

I need a vision that will give me some direction

like the North Star, or a sextant.

I need a vision that will give me purpose,

like a child would, or caring for an ill parent.

I need a vision,

and I don’t mean some supernatural happenstance.

I don’t need a burning bush or a visit from an angel.

I don’t need God to be so blatant,

or to go out of her way to perform any miracles.

All I need is a vision.

I need a vision in my mind.

Something to inhabit the

fifteen hundred cubic centimeters

between my ears that makes that space

different than the 7 billion other

cranial cavities being carried over this earth.

I need an idea to be swimming through my

cerebrospinal fluid, one that will visit

every lobe of the cortex and every fold on the surface,

and will bring them all back to life

because it is true, I believe,

that ideas carry energy.

I need energy.

I need the energy that lives inside the souls

of the folks we write biographies about.

I need the energy that comes from

the inspiration behind a documentary.

I need the kind of energy that declares “this is what is going to happen”,

and has the power to make it so.

I need that power.

Sometimes, I suppose

people have that and it goes

dormant.

Like the roughly ten thousand seeds

that nestle into every square meter of arable Earth,

waiting for their opportunity.

What I need is a dream that will put me back together.

That will melt down these 20 plus years

of fragmented experiences and

that will stir the molten me until

every morsel finds a way to work together.

What I need is not the American Dream,

because like George Carlin told us;

you would have to be asleep to believe in that.

And I need to wake up.

I need to get out of bed and take action.

I need to see that I can be made useful.

After months of sleeping,

I need to spring to life with the coming season.

To show my colors along with the fields of goldenrod and chicory.

I need to grow.

I need to grow, and I need to die, and I need to be replaced.

But what I need is for whatever takes my space to benefit from my life,

even if they don’t realize it.

I need to do something that can be taken for granted.

I need to be planted

in soil with the proper pH levels,

and with complementary neighbors,

and I need to be watered regularly.

But I can’t hand off all of the responsibility.

I need to make my own fertilizer,

like a black locust tree, or alfalfa.

But first, I need a vision.

Because as we all know;

no seed ever sat in the dirt and took root

without a plan for what they would become.

The ten thousand seeds directly underneath you

are left in the ground because they

don’t know just what they want to be yet.

And I don’t know just what I want to be yet.

So, I need a vision.

Today, more than ever it seems, young people are driven to make a big impact on the world around them. Despite the decline of traditional forms of civic engagement in the U.S. over recent decades, The Hartford’s 2014 Millennial Leadership Survey found that 83% of Millennials self-identify as a leader in at least one area of their life. It is no surprise in these contentious times that younger generations are becoming influential players by engaging in the many metaphorical wars that are rapidly changing our social landscape. It even seems that we are living through a slight shift (in increasingly powerful) between educating for obedience and educating for leadership, and we are just beginning to see the impact. Overall, I believe that this will have a positive effect on our democracy and society. At the same time, however, the pressure young people today feel to define their purpose and discover their ability to make an impact, or even to be a young success like the idolized leaders in our culture, can become a war within as well.

In light of this challenge facing young people to define themselves and a direction for their life and work, I offer a poem I wrote in 2013 while doing this soul-searching myself during an internship phase of my gap year with Lagom Landing (a local educational non-profit.) The poem is inspired by many things, including a trip the program took to Fruition Seeds to meet with Petra Page-Mann, a visionary leader of the regionally adapted seed movement. It is an homage to all people whose good work inspires others, and to those still looking to find their way to make an impact. Keep doing what you can and helping each other grow and reach their light, while being careful to remember that human beings just develop a bit slower than most plants!

Joshua Murphy holds a B.A. in Psychology from SUNY Geneseo. He is an Academic Advisor at Monroe Community College’s Liberty Partnerships Program, a Board Member and Facilitator at Lagom Landing Gap Year, and a student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.