If I have to walk I'm gonna get there just the same.

And a good morning to you; I haven’t felt much like writing anything here lately. The last few times I sat down to do it because it felt like I was supposed to be doing it. I’m not sure why that is. I have been involved in my music more lately. I’m also in the middle of the storm center of a particular astrological circumstance and it is having a noticeable effect. I don’t know how relevant this is to anyone but I say it by way of explanation if you do not hear from me for periods of time. I was seriously considering moving on. I’ve done this for a year now and pretty much covered a lot of ground. The ground I haven’t covered doesn’t get discussed in this medium, or else it’s what I haven’t yet experienced or assimilated. Time for another paragraph I suppose-

...in this essay, not in my life (grin).

Well, at the same time there’s no point in saying I’m not going to do anything anymore. How would I know? So let’s just say that I come and I go and I’m not sure how that gets scheduled. For the moment I’m here.

One of the things I notice is the way people drive their cars. It’s probably a good idea for all of us to give this as much as attention as we can during the times we are on that particular field of play; whether that is in a vehicle or on foot in the general area. In the town where I am residing there are a lot of bicycles and pedestrians and what-not. Even in the center of town it always surprises me to see cars angling to pull around anything that isn't going fast enough to suit them. Once they get outside of the small shopping district about 50% of them floor it and get up into speeds that would have them in traffic court, were this America.

There aren’t many police here. You seldom see police. In America they are everywhere; which doesn’t mean there’s less crime or anything. America remains the most dangerous part of the world I have ever spent any time in. In Europe people are given a lot of leeway in terms of judgment. This doesn’t mean there aren’t speed limits and pricey tickets. It’s just that there’s a lot less oversight and scrutiny. In any case, people behave better in Europe than they do in the U.K. or the U.S. The U.K. isn’t really part of Europe the way I see it. That’s a very violent place, just like America. Both of them have extreme police presence. I’ve speculated that it is because both of these locations are criminal empires and the philosophy and perspective trickles down into the mainstream public.

But this isn’t about whether there’s more crime in one place than another. This is about the general impatience and ‘me first’ attitude that prevails world wide. I believe there are howling spirits that inhabit the highway systems. They are slipstreams of urgency. The majority of humanity is powered out of their subconscious. They’re driven by urges and appetites and fears. Most of them are insane but it is a controlled insanity more or less. Compulsions are a controlled insanity, obsessions can be too. There’s always edginess about the various drives that people, more or less, have under control.

When people get into cars something seems to take over. There’s an imperative to get nowhere fast. I see these same people wandering down the sidewalks, taking their stomachs on a sightseeing trip, looking for something, the ‘what’ of ‘which’ is never really found. Everything else stands in for the thing they can’t find. Time is made up of all the interactions between people and objects in place of what they are really after. Quite often people look lost to me. They don’t seem to know where they are going or what they want. If they had to, or chose to, stop and think about that for a moment I believe it would frighten them and immediately propel them back into the restless pursuit of nothing.

I watch people. It is something I do. Instead of shopping, I watch people shop. Instead of drinking and talking ‘at’ someone, I watch people doing this. I happen to know that the sole object of all life’s actions is to discover God. There is no event in your life that is not in some way connected to this. You don’t have to call it God. You could call it; ‘the answer’ or Truth, or the Philosopher's Stone or Peace of Mind. They’re all included in it and so is everything else you can name as a substitute for terms that might offend your seemingly personal independence of thought and action.

Because I know that the sole purpose of life is a reunification of the self with The Self, it makes people watching a different thing for me than it might for some. People look to me like someone who dropped something but can’t remember where they dropped it, so they are always looking about them to see if it might be there. People look to me like they forgot something, they know it’s important but they can’t seem to remember what it was. Occasionally you will see them do that ‘Eureka!’ thing and set off to get a pound of butter, a husband or a wife, or a notebook or a gun. It’s all temporary though because that’s not it; whatever ‘that’ is.

People look to me like they don’t know what they’re doing here but that they need to act like they’re supposed to be or the other chickens will peck them to death. People look hungry and frightened and ridiculous sometimes when they are posing as something that they got the idea was legitimate or lasting or substantial. People often look angry and disappointed. Sometimes they look Pollyanna cheerful and just cute as a button and more than ready to go out and save some souls and testify about all the good things God did in the life they haven’t lived yet.

I’ve heard that Alcoholics Anonymous has been getting quite a few people who don’t really drink coming in. It shows up when they tell their stories because they don’t have a story. Most people aren’t going to risk anything and if they do it will be in a particular age period, after that, it’s all on rails. I see that when I watch older people. We’ve got a lot of older people where I live. Watching older people is a real learning experience. What I find fascinating is that no one thinks they are going to turn into older people. Older people’s faces tell you a great deal.

I’m not one of those people who think babies are cute and special. They turn into everyone you see around you. I don’t think about how I have a mother and a father in the usual sense. My family is just everybody else, even though I do have a family the way others do; I don’t really and my life is proof of that. Sometimes it is hard for me to distinguish anyone from anyone. Good and bad have a very different meaning for me. I learn this from watching people. I have found it is wisest for me to rarely speak about the things I think about. The best thing for me has been just to slip on by.

I’m going to go out and get in my car now and drive over to the thermal baths and spend the day in the saunas and pools and dream about vanished civilizations where I have no doubt I would have been more comfortable. I’m not going to turn into Minniver Cheevy though for all of that. I’ll see what I usually see on my way there. I’ll see people driving faster than they have to on their way to nowhere. I’ll see people looking like they dropped something but I’ll know better than to ask if I can help.

I’ll see people expecting things but they won’t have a bill of lading in their hand. I’ll see people in all manner of poses that are a reaction to the fundamental point of the life they are involved in that they have some idea might be some other thing. Occasionally I will catch a glimmer of the thing itself that exists at a right angle to everything else. It’ll flash and then disappear. I saw it this morning as I was about to meditate in the garden. It was glistening like a tiny diamond on the end of a leaf. It was some form of caged sunlight. I looked at it and wondered. I expect if I go back outside now that I won’t find that particular evidence of the secret of life. I know I couldn’t begin to explain what I mean when I call it that.

Some secrets are safe. You find that it is impossible to reveal them. People drive past them and walk past them in huge numbers every day and never see a thing.

Visible sings: ♫ I'm in my Car ♫
'I'm in my Car' is track no. 2 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Almost A Capella'