Tilting At Windmills - Why It Is Important

Life Is An Adventure - Paint It Pink

PAINTING THE TOWN PINK - THE ART AND SCIENCE - A TRUE STORY

My husband - the warrior - was once fourteen years old. His father got him his first real job - with the local fire department.

The grizzled old fire department warriors didn’t know what to do with him. So they sat him at the adjoining bar to eat jelly toast.

When they got tired of babysitting him in the bar they finally relented. They took him out to paint fire hydrants.

They dropped him off on the street corner with pots of white paint and red paint. If our hero had conscientiously painted the bases white and the tops red there would be no story here.

This solemn focused fourteen year old somehow managed to fail to adequately clean the brush at one point. Voila! Pink fire hydrants.

He successfully lived down the ribbing he took from the old fire department war horses - not an easy thing to do when you have accidentally painted the town pink.

As metaphors often are - it was perfect. Who knew painting the town pink indicated a talent for tilting successfully at windmills? And since enemies are not always imaginary as indicated by Miguel de Cervantes' in his novel Don Quixote this metaphor works on another level.

Tilting at windmills is only a worthless enterprise when you cannot see or define one’s enemies. Tilting at windmills is not recommended for the psychologically or spiritually blind.

For many of us this tilting at windmills is exactly what we should do - as explained by the following essay.

https://www.sas.rochester.edu/mlc/news-events/news/2019-03-24_prendergast_last_lecture.html

Tilting at windmills to the point of painting the town pink is exactly what we must all be willing to do. If the town looks and functions better lit up with pink it beats the dreary alternatives.

Paint those towns pink friends. Tilt at windmills. There are plenty of enemies out there - seen and unseen.

Real humans tilt at windmills and know just what to do with red and white paint.

To all the fellow pirates out there. You know who you are.

We all are the stories we tell ourselves. Tell the right stories.