There might be another option. If I choose to live, can I do it without music, without riding, without running, without drinking, without DVDs, without relationships or sex, without roadtrips or traveling for the sake of traveling? Well? Can I, punk?!
My impulse has been to just toss the Etch-a-Sketch into the garbage. This option is to just shake it clean.
Continuing my life on its current path would be meaningless, so if I continued life at all, it would mean discarding everything I'm carrying on this path and choosing a completely different one. But can I do it? Can I make that mental shift to take the middle road of living but without the vices and trappings that have kept me in limbo of condemning while sustaining me?
Last week while helping Amy pack up to leave, she came across a book by Thich Nhat Hanh that someone had given to her and told her to pass it along when she was done. She asked me if I wanted to read it, gave it to me, and told me to pass it along once I was done with it.
I'm more than halfway through, and it's not blowing me away, it's not opening any doors, but it's resonating mildly. But last night, something in my head clicked and made a connection, and this morning I went to this website, which it turns out is the website of one of Thich Nhat Hanh's monasteries near San Diego.
I knew about the site (the click and connection) because I had perused it at work as recently as a year or two ago. In fact, some of the links on the website on my computer had been activated, so I was apparently looking at this site at home, too. I'm not sure how much to read into this as a sign, I'm sorta through with being blown away by coincidences.
I will decide today whether to look into it. If I do, I won't try too hard. I'll leave it to the fates.
Man, I'm losing sound and sight
Of all those who can tell me wrong from right
When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night
Yet there’s still something in my heart
That can find a way to make a start
To turn up the signal, wipe out the noise
- Peter Gabriel (Signal to Noise)
