To this day I’m not entirely sure he was speeding. Maybe 55 in a 50. But it made me insane for a brief moment.

Just before that I had been in supremely thoughtful and grateful mood, just having visited my one-year-old nephew. Little kids make me more mindful, of how abruptly I move, of where I put my feet, of what I say, until I forget.

When I left my sister’s house the world felt like a china shop to me. Priceless and deserving of care.

So when the little Hyundai with the skinny driver came whipping thoughtlessly around the curve in front of the house, I couldn’t bear it. The Holden Caulfield in me took over and I slammed on the horn.

My car was still parked, so for him the honk must have come out of nowhere, and he almost jumped out of his seat, like he was in a cartoon.

He was a young guy with thick glasses, altogether harmless looking, and I felt bad immediately. I’m sure he had no idea I existed, or why anyone was honking at all.

I just wanted him to slow down on a residential street where kids live. But it was the wrong way. I was in my own world and he was in his and I communicated nothing to him. Read More

I had a rough couple of days and last night I was angry when I went to bed and I was and angry when I woke up today. In rotten moods, perspective goes out the window, and even though I’m aware of that, I can’t get it back.

It’s like how Hunter S. Thompson described one’s behavior under the influence of ether: you can see yourself behaving in this terrible way, but you can’t control it. There’s a point where all wisdom has left on vacation and all bets are off, and I was way past there.

This morning, while I angrily packed my lunch I was lucky enough to remember something I’d once realized about anger:

Anger makes me forget other people are people.

They’re still around, their faces and voices, but they no longer quite appear to be people, like me. I become blind to the fact that other people might also be having a hard time. My world becomes entirely about me and the last thing on my mind is giving thought to how the other people might be doing. When we get angry, that’s the first casualty: compassion.

I guess the corollary to that is this:

Other lives are just as real and immediate as your own.

I think most of the time we don’t quite appreciate this truth. We would still probably nod our heads in agreement if someone said that, but that’s not the same as really feeling the reality of that in the moment. The pit in your throat you sometimes feel when things go wrong, other people have that too, and it’s every bit as real. Often it’s happening right beside you, in the next car over, in the elevator with you, across the counter from you. Really.

When I get mad, any awareness of that is the first thing that goes out the window. Read More

A smart person once told me while I was looking up at some stars, to “please be aware that you are seeing.”

I’ve heard that and said it a few times since, and the initial reaction to that remark is typically something like, “Well, no shit.” It was mine, for a moment.

But it is really something profound, if you stick with that thought longer than a moment.

We are aware, to some degree, almost all the time. Awareness isn’t just a big part of life, it comprises life as we know it. So it rarely occurs to us that it needn’t necessarily be this way.

Yet we are aware. If we know nothing else, we know that is true. I mean, if there’s anything we take for granted, it’s this astonishing fact that we are aware of stuff. And it’s the coolest, most empowering fact of all.

If you can look down and see your legs, then I guess you could say you’re aware of yourself. Again, duh. But which part of you is aware of your legs? You’d probably say your brain, and while I’m not convinced that’s entirely correct, let’s say it is. Already we have something interesting happening. One part of something is aware of its other aspects.

Or at least some of its other aspects. I doubt anybody would be aware they had a liver if nobody told them, or if they did not deduce it somehow by becoming aware of other livers in other people. So your self-awareness is not complete, meaning you’re not aware of every single thing going on in your body. But we don’t need to have every possible bit of information about ourselves in order to be aware of ourselves or to know ourselves.

You are a part of the universe, I’m going to presume. So when you’re out late on a long weekend, leaning back on the hood of a ’76 Vista Cruiser looking up at the stars from some campsite here on earth, one part of the universe is suddenly acutely aware of another part of it.

It’s fair to say then, that at least in that moment, the universe is conscious of itself. Read More

Then she started screaming, and that’s when I asked myself what I was doing there at all. It was someone else’s idea, but it was either that or stay home Saturday night.

Horror movies were never my choice. These days I don’t like them because they’re just not very good movies. But when I was a kid, before I became preoccupied with their vacuous production values, I didn’t like them because they scared me.

Back then too, I would never see a horror movie out of my own volition. But you know how peer pressure and sleepover politics work when you’re a pre-teen. You do things you don’t really want to do, and I’d occasionally end up in front of one.

“People like to be scared,” was the stock answer whenever I’d ask why the hell anybody would voluntarily sit through something like Slumber Party Massacre II, but I don’t ever remember enjoying being scared, at least not then.

So in those early years, before I lost my ability to lose any part of myself in a bad movie, those occasions were almost guaranteed to be unpleasant experiences. But eventually I figured out a cure.

It was so simple, and it worked for so many other unpleasant bits in life. Enduring horror movies effortlessly was the least of it. Later I would use it to get through boring speeches without looking at my watch, sit through embarrassing moments (think marriage proposals at public sporting events) without cringing, and eventually to discover who I really was and what it really means to be human. But I’ll get to that.

The trick

The technique didn’t come to me right away, it evolved in a couple stages.

The most obvious way to get through a scary movie was to do your best not to watch it. Any time spent getting Tahiti Treat from the fridge, or making sarcastic remarks (until you get shushed) was time not spent actually watching the movie. But this technique isn’t always possible, tends to annoy others, and it’s pretty obvious to other people what you’re trying to do.

So one time, I happened to be wearing a baseball cap, and I put it low enough on my head so that the beak of the hat drooped over half the screen. It still looked like I was watching it fearlessly, but I was only seeing people’s legs, which wasn’t scary at all. I didn’t always block the nasty bits of the image, because sometimes a butcher-knifed delivery boy would drop into view, but it still broke the effect of the movie almost completely. By seeing only half the screen, only about 10% of the scariness made it through to me. Totally manageable.

But I didn’t always have a hat, and it still would probably look pretty conspicuous to anybody who bothered to look. Then one day it occurred to me — a way to watch the movie without being affected by watching it.

I would go ahead and watch the movie, and whenever I was getting a bit freaked out, I would cross my eyes just slightly enough to blur the scene, and the scariness was gone, instantly. It’s like it sucked me right out of the psycho-clown world and back into the unthreatening basics of the moment: an unlit living room with some other kids, watching a low-brow movie for kicks. Read More

***

In whatever dream I was having there’s a crash above me, and my body jumps and wakes me up. It’s pitch dark. Philip said there are monkeys that play on the roof at night. The generator must have gone off because my fan is dead and it’s sweltering inside. I’m being bitten all over, so I fumble for my keychain LED and click it on. To my horror the mosquito net is untucked and I’m exposed. I must have forgotten when I went to the bathroom earlier. I tuck it back in and scan around me with the flashlight. I’m sitting in a cone of white mosquito netting and in the faint light I notice the inside is dotted with hundreds of mosquitoes, all fat with my blood. For an hour and a half I stay up, scanning with my tiny light, until I’m sure I’ve killed every single one.

***

The sun is gone by the time we start rolling out of the station. I’ll be sleeping on the upper bunk. The train picks up speed and I’m watching the big buildings of the inner city give way to apartments, markets, parks and temples, and finally shanty houses. They’re built out of corrugated steel, and they back right onto the tracks, most of them open to my view. They shoot past me by the dozen and I can see figures moving in them. Mattresses. Decorations. Kids. A few of them are illuminated by a lamp bulb somewhere inside. The train is clipping along now and these little lightbox dioramas are flashing by me, several families per second.

***

Eight of us are sitting on our boards and the first set hasn’t come in, but nobody’s getting impatient. It’s probably not even 6am yet, there isn’t a lick of wind, and the east horizon is beginning to glow. The water is so warm it feels like the air. Normally we chat out here between sets, but talking right now would be absurd. I lay back on my nine-footer and I’m surprised to see the stars haven’t quite disappeared yet.

***

Three hours ago I didn’t know a soul in the whole country, and now I’m perched on the back of an Israeli girl’s motorbike, gripping the seat behind me with both hands as a pack of twelve of us tear through the Old Town. Large stretches of the town are closed up and dark. It’s raining a bit but it feels awesome. I don’t remember where they said we’re going, but I’ve been assured it’s not in the guidebook. Read More

Look away from the screen for a moment. Take a half-minute off from your blog-reading and look at the people and objects around you right at this instant. Get a good feel for the moment’s scenery and emotional tone, and when you’re done, read on.

(Do it now.)

Back?

I have a question for you:

Where are you at this exact moment in your life?

Obviously you’re in front of a computer screen of some kind (maybe a smartphone), so give us a little bit more context than that.

Where are you right now, physically, and how did you get there?

When I ask “how did you get here” I’m not looking for something like, “I rode my bike.” I mean, what circumstances and incentives brought you to this exact place you’re sitting now? What were you looking for that brought you here?

And I don’t mean these as rhetorical questions either. Tell me in the comment section below. Where are you right now, what’s going on, and how do you feel about that? Use a fake name and email address if your current moment involves hiding from bounty hunters or smuggling knockoff Ray-Bans and you’re concerned about privacy.

There are a lot of places you could be. Time and space can serve up a gazillion unique little corners to find oneself in. Maybe you’re riding a creaky city bus, iPhone in hand, on your way to a job you just started Monday. Or you might be first one in the office this morning and the main overhead lights aren’t on yet, because you wanted to tackle something you know you should have done yesterday. Or you could be in your roommate’s room, ready to click the browser closed and pretend you weren’t using his laptop, because you know he gets home from the gym around now.

But you’re right here. Look away from the screen again for a second.

That’s yours, for now. Your lot. This little corner of time you’re in — is it the result of a direct decision on your part, or is it more a product of what you might call “happenstance”? Did you decide to be here or did it sort of settle out this way?

Are you waiting on something? Avoiding something? Excited for something?

What moment have you arrived at, in this, the Greatest Story Ever Told?

And one final follow-up question, if you feel like answering it:

Do you feel like you are where you’re supposed to be?

I know that’s a subjective question and there are a lot of ways to look at it, but it’s definitely answerable.

That’s all I want to know. Please tell me. The reason why will come in the next post.

Photo by striatic