Stepping Back and Stepping In It

Anytime I feel comfortable, I know something is wrong. So, just as soon as I get ready to read one set of books (mentioned in a recent blog entry), I choose another set I didn't intend to read, meaning the books in front of me now are:

• "The Trouble With Being Born" by E.M. Cioran
• "Mason & Dixon" by Thomas Pynchon
• "A Foreign Policy of Freedom" by Ron Paul

and some movies:

• "Mindwalk," directed by Bernt Capra and written by Fritjof Capra
• "The Eye is Never Filled" by Ken Nordine

They, in turn have led me back to Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes and Pascal's Pensees, and forward to Phyllis Schlafly, Ilya Prigogine and Humberto Maturana.

In the midst of these, I am publishing another novel, "A Space, A Period, And A Capital," a story about the relationships within decision-making that I previously posted on the Web as free e-text and soon providing in book form, dedicated to those for whom silence forever bears grave witness (people such as former schoolmate David Mayberry).

To exist within one's comfort zone implies a kind of willingness to shut one's self into a box, close the lid and return to Earth/earth before one's time is up. Discomfort slows down time and makes one see every moment intensely. Best see the world through the eyes of an adversary or your sublobes of thought than eat vanilla ice cream the rest of your life and numb your tonguewise speech.