Field of Dreams: If You Build It...

We have three free months of HBO and Cinemax with our satellite TV package, so I'm stocking up on movie watching while I can. In the midst of all the "new" movies they play (which, of course, are only new the first time you watch them, and then decidedly not-so-new the next 300 times they run them during the month) are a bunch of old ones. Some old-old ones (like Marlene Dietrich old) and some just old-er ones.

Today, I watched Field of Dreams. Remember that one? Kevin Coster still couldn't act, even back then... Guy buys a farm, starts to hear voices, and plows under his corn field to build a baseball diamond, with floodlights and everything. You know: If you build it, they will come... and, of course, they do... and everyone lives happily ever after. Taa daa!

It was actually kind of fun to re-watch. I don't think I've seen it since it came out in 1989! Even if Kevin Costner is a horrible actor... (at least he wasn't trying to do a British accent, like in that awful 80's version of Robin Hood... *shudder*) Amy Madigan and James Earl Jones were awesome. And that guy that was in Thirtysomething plays a great villian. And the concept appeals... because, frankly, it's a pretty crazy thing to do, plowing under your cash crop to make a place for people to play some silly game. That someone could do something THAT nuts... and come out on top? I mean, what are the odds?

Most people spend their whole lives playing things pretty safe. When do we ever make decisions without a net? We go to school, we get good grades, we get good jobs, we plan for our retirement... that's the "good" life, isn't it? How often do we listen to that little voice? The one that tells us to take a major risk? To jump without a net?

What does it take for us to listen to that voice? If you build it, they will come... When it goes against every ounce of logic, when it puts your livelihood at risk, when it might make you look like a complete and total idiot... would you still listen to that voice?

Life isn't a movie, of course... we don't always get the happy ending. Sometimes we build it, and darnit, they just don't show up. They get stuck in traffic, or they just don't get the message. And we're stuck with no cash crop and an empty baseball diamond.

Take our moving here... it certainly wasn't the logical decision, considering the housing market. Our other house still hasn't sold, and it's only had a few showings. But we didn't wait for our house to sell... we followed that little voice. Move. Now. We found this place, and that's what we did...

I still don't know what's going to happen, of course. We could end up in foreclosure after all. It's a risk. But isn't everything? Isn't safety really the illusion? And sometimes...sometimes that voice really does know what it's talking about, when we listen to it.

So, maybe, sometimes: if we build it, they will come...

But there's no maybe about this: if we don't build it, they can never come...