Life and the Tao of Picnic

It’s eerie how I can write the most incredible and awe-inspiring post in my head in mere seconds, only to lose all ability to write when I try to convert it to text. This is one of those kind of posts. I have anticipate this post; maybe even dreaded it, for a long time. It was bound to happen. The question always has been… when? I guess when is now. Or part of when is now anyway.

About now, anyone who stumbled by here is wondering: when will this Idiot actually SAY something? What is this big reveal he is clumsily dancing around? Get on with it already! Stop stalling! OK. OK. I’ll just come right out and say … I have no clue what I am wanting to say.

It seems that I too have become a spectator for my life.

For those of you who have been following this adventure from the beginning, I am surprised as you to say we may all have been wrong about this journey’s destination. It started as a way for for two men who have been knocked askew by life to regain a sense of self and the world. Gradually a sense of purpose was added to that list. The character of the adventure has morphed before our eyes, but one theme held common … the ultimate physical destination is Katahdin. Wanna be thru-hiker -> walker -> painful hiker -> “thru-hiker” -> explorer of Appalachia -> explorer of realities -> ???

I am not sure I ever was just intending to do a long hike. I have gone walk about.

I have very long-windedly gotten to the point (I think). I am torn about the next step of my journey. This area I have stalled in is a gateway to the Land of What If? There are so many directions I can go right now that even my rather broad imagination can’t encompass all the possibilities. Ironically, the lands I can’t imagine are the ones I want to explore.

Forces are pulling me in many directions. Big deal. That is life. But right now these forces are pulling so strongly in opposite directions that I feel it in the center of my soul. The black hole pull of the unknown is countered by the chains of other’s expectations (the strongest chains no doubt my own PERCEPTION of other’s expectations), while the me that I want to be, the me that I think I am, and the me that IS fight for dominance.

This me ...
This me …
... or this me?
… or this me?

What’s next for me? I truly do not know. I am blind at a crossroad, and cannot even FEEL where to put my feet next. I have found more truth and honesty in the fringes of humanity than anywhere in that manufactured reality we call the mainstream. Every time I hear news of THAT world, it screams in pain. A pain I have no power to heal. “What is in it for me?” has replaced Right Action. Having for the sake of having has replaced compassion. And the “appearance” of right has replaced actual morality. That is the world I am trying to gain freedom from. Yet the only way to do this right now is to cut ties that should not be cut. Follow the heart? Follow the mind? Follow the soul? Or find the eye of the storm where all three meet?

What’s next for me?