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Adventures of a Rogue Journalist
Wheel of Fortune
24 April 2000
I don't have my notes with me, is that okay? Is it worthy to report in excrutiating detail what has gone right and wrong in my life over the past week or two, even the past day? It depends on one's approach. Do I enjoy processing feelings with my wife? Do I get caught up in career-wise ego games? Do I forget to listen to my inner child with some compassionate distance, yet allowing that expression? Do I remember to breathe?
It's easy to get lost in the shuffle, when everything is going good. That's when the old wheel of fortune kicks in, throwing us off over the crest and into the downswing. If we're not covering our backside, we're in for a fall. The fool on the hill, and all that rot.
It's only fair, really. We're not meant to fly with wax wings. We need, as the pitchers say, to stay within ourselves, even when performing at--especially when performing at our peak, for fame or fortune or just sheer prideful human pleasure, else we take one misstep and plunge, oh so quickly...
Accidents are overrated. It's not just the recklessly depressed who run off the road or into the oncoming traffic; it's the A crowd too busy tracking the speed of their own thoughts, to notice what's watching them from the woods. Them is us, by the way.
So when I think I've got it all together, projects on the rise and domestic bliss, rolled up into one nice pleasantville chilled sandwich, I need to check again for the toxic ingredients, the victims of the land grab, the children cooped in their cribs. I am such a child.
So is my partner. Amid all our blamings and stressful compassion for one another, those clinging needs have a basis in one most powerful drive: the life force, the magnetic inevitability of attraction and closeness and touch. There's a lot more than therapy and sex going on, and it helps to realize that even nature goes through its storms and seasons, its night and day. Heavy seas last week, next week? Well all right, maybe we do deserve another go. It only makes us stronger for the effort, coming out burned clean on the other side.
© Nowick Gray
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