4-7-08 Flowing with the Tide

Between Sixth Avenue, where the B train arrives on 42nd Street, and Fifth Avenue, a tunnel stretches to funnel commuters beneath the street. For some reason, today all of the trains in both directions arrived at the station at once, and the tunnel was full of people, hundreds of people bobbing along in the stream of bodies, all flowing down the conduit.

I was worried that, if I surrendered to the flow, relaxed and let the tide carry me, that I would lose my individuality, but I realized that if I relaxed my body, flowed with the mass, while keeping my eyes open and paying attention, that I actually was freed to be even more myself. I didn't have to push or impose my will, skirting between slower walkers and constantly searching for an opening - I could be both myself and a part of the crowd, anonymous, unremarked, necessary.

1-15-08 The Sutra of Lowered Expectations

Whenever I find something that I enjoy just for itself, like, say, writing in this blog, I have this pernicious tendency to fuck it all up with my ridiculous sense of self-importance and ambition. Well not this time, buckos. I found myself checking my blog traffic way too much and I've decided I've had enough of my shit. So I may be doing some rather self-sabotaging things in the next couple of weeks, just to pull the rug out from under my monkey-mind, cause he wants everything, and he doesn't care who he has to put in traction to get it, the little bastard.