Unsettled Prairie

"I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we crow pale and die." ~ Chief Satanta, Kiowa

The word "unsettled" makes us feel, well, unsettled. And yet in the context of Chief Satanka's words, unsettled means freedom.  We are living in unsettled times, and that has a lot of people rattled.  We like things to be calm and predictable.  And yet, when things are, we become bored and invent ways to drum up a little excitement.

I don't profess to have the answer to this dilemma, except to say that for humans, and maybe as any type of sentient being, life without challenges, without freedom, without things that scare us and things that delight us, without contrasts, without highs and lows...leads to boredom.  And as any parent of a child or companion of a four-legged will tell you...boredom leads to a certain type of creativity. Flour drawings on the floor, chewed furniture, shelves cleared and fences knocked down because the grass is greener on the other side.