I was startled out of my sleep early this morning, around 4:30am, by an earthquake. My heart leaped into my throat. I quickly jumped out of bed, but the earth returned to calm before I reached the doorway. I couldn't catch my breath for 5 minutes. My psyche doesn't respond well to lack of control. I will move myself if I fuckin feel like it...thank you very much. When I have no say and come directly into contact with outside forces, I am humbled by my own powerlessness in the web of things.
This morning when discussing with friends what type of earthquake we prefer (eg: slow, long rollers or hard, quick, forceful booms), I realized we were talking about something more than tectonic plates shifting. It's kind of like the question "how would you prefer to die?"
-slow cancer?
-or an unexpected bullet through the heart?
Such questions and answers, preferences and dislikes, point to our ideas of how things ought to be. The mind has all kind of ideas of life, death and freedom from fear of death that we transform into philosophies and theories. But in the end, I think folks want to control how and when and why things happen to them. (Hence the virtual worlds and "second life" type spots where people have complete artistic control over how they appear) Regardless of our desires to avoid being victims of reality--we always will be. Like Hillary said last week: life is messy.
I didn't want to wake up 4 hours early this morning. But I did like the extra time I had to watch the Sopranos. Sometimes the unexpected is a good thing. Touche :).
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