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Volume No. 1 Issue No. 61 - Friday August 06, 2004 |
Who You Rolling With By Thomson Fontaine
Here it was again, that wonderful refrain from the latest music record on the Island; �who you rolling with, who you rolling with?� I instinctively reached over and pumped up the volume on the car radio. I was rolling with the music and loving it. Dominica was alive and very well. In the distance the blue sky dovetailed into the equally blue ocean as waves danced up and down the rugged coastline.
For the past several days I was taking in the sights, smells and sounds of Dominica. Only a year had passed since my last visit, but it could well have been yesterday. At nights I would lay awake thinking where else in the world can one go on vacation and have a choice of bathing in 365 cool refreshing rivers, or a warm salty ocean, or hot sulphuric pools, or delightfully refreshing cascading waterfalls, or fresh water lakes.
Where else in the world could one walk down a busy downtown street and get greeted by complete strangers with a smile and a laugh. Go to an open market and sample dozens of variety of fruit. Enter a restaurant and be served some of the most delightful tasting foods anywhere on the planet.
Dive to a breathtaking underwater display of some of the rarest sights ever seen by man. And everywhere listen to the sound of this compelling music that set your feet dancing. �Who you rolling with, Who you rolling with?� I never quite learnt the rest of the song but long after my vacation was over, this refrain would come back to me time and time again.
When I first heard it, I assumed the writer was asking who you are driving with. I then thought it meant, do you know who your friends are. Later I considered it to be asking who or what are you relating to or identifying with.
It is this later categorization that I think gives much meaning to the song and which highlights its most profound interpretation. In a real sense, the people that you listen to, look up to, or take into your confidence are the ones that to a very large extent determine what you eventually achieve in life.
Something along the lines of show me who your friends are. Yet, it is more than that. One�s character, self esteem or even outlook on life is to a very large extent determined by the company they keep.
Sit around negative, depressed people and very soon you will be carrying the world on your shoulders. However, if you surround yourself with those of a positive outlook, then you begin to believe that no battle is impossible to win, nor any task too great to accomplish.
Most personal lessons can be applied broadly to a group or even to a country. If we all roll with the naysayers then very soon nothing gets done and the country flounders. Alternatively, when we listen to those among us with the courage and strength of vision, then we begin to see the impossible become possible. Who are you rolling with?
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