Better late than never.

It's a cloudy dreary Saturday and the world chugs on with or without me. I do like sitting on the sidelines and watching everything go by. Participation often costs too much and gets me little more than sore feet and a feeling of intense frustration at what I can't do. There's a pleasant glow in sitting it out on the side and ignoring the noise of the contestants.

What do my early experiences have to teach me? I need to look back on age 8 or 9 and remember what made up my day back then. I remember a lot of time spent at the house, usually with only my mom around. I existed on the fringe of her world. Actually I should say that we coexisted on the fringes of each other's worlds. Like steel balls orbiting on one of those science projects demonstrating the effects of gravity on space. A plane curving down to a deep hole in the middle, the steel balls rolling around the center with enough speed to keep themselves moving and avoiding being drawn into the central pocket but never enough to escape the curve of the path they rolled on.

I'm not sure whether I was successful in describing what I was picturing there but I could see it plainly. From a distance, it's plain that the two balls are locked into a path that will eventually lead them to surrender to the central point but to the balls themselves, they always seem to be just about to break free and roll off into unfettered space. It's only right that their doom in hidden from them. It's the carrot dangling on the end of the stick for the donkey. It's the image of the mechanical rabbit racing along the rail at the racetrack for the greyhounds. It is the way of the world.

It's what gets everyone of us up in the morning and eager to begin our day. It is a mirage, the fata morgana. It is just enough and no more than that.. More would be a waste, an extravagance. Unnecessary for the purpose of animating the weak flesh. It maintains the illusion of choice. It is all that is needed.

More later,

(Photo by Carey Rose)