A Place I Always Try to Avoid

     The future is the undiscovered country and the past is the region of a young man's nightmares or an old man's idyllic fantasies. Past experiences can scar us as they teach us. Our whole lives are journeys from inception to death and after as well. Whatever happens to consciousness upon death, our cells become energy again. Whether instantly through cremation or eventually through decomposition, we continue with the whole of existence. Perception might shut off, and might not. I try to avoid death at every juncture. But I turn off my perception every night when I sleep. I turn off a lot of perception when I meditate. Ironic, given that lowering my guard is something I always try to avoid. I scour my mind for lessons whenever a memory pops up, to see the scene in a different way, gain some insight that I didn't have before, or find something funny to turn the energy into a jewel of mirth. A lot of lessons turn to blessings when you run the testament of "what every test meant." But I always try to avoid dwelling in the past. Life is a strategy game and nobody wants to end up in check mate, so we project to beat fate. Look ahead, but I always try to avoid living in the maybe. Illinois is where I went to college for 3 1/2 years and had a run of raucous adventures, but I always try to avoid returning to the Midwest. I was young, naive, confused, and as a self-made man I was self-deluded, misled. Delusions and the fanciful place of personal lack that causes people to fill their heads with fantasies of how they wish life could be is a mental chamber I always try to avoid. Yet I dive into the subconscious pool everyday to create. Pain, humiliation, sickness, catastrophe I always try to avoid. Yet I open conversation with strangers everyday, always seeking to learn about them. I take on new artistic projects and increase the depth of my learning on pre-existing channels. Failure is a constant part of learning. Frustration is not a key component and doubt, despair are emotional places I always try to avoid. Hitting a wall can make me hungry, ambitious, to try again. Or it can make me adapt, try a different thing completely. Giving up is a decision I always try to avoid, so when I have to try a different activity, I often table the original act to return to. Regret from not trying is a mindkill. Mindkill I always try to avoid.

      My mind will continue to seek new plateaus to climb. New experiences, new conversations, new knowledge add layers to my running narrative. So much of what I always try to avoid I run towards, embracing fear, taking risks, challenging myself. Physically dangerous or simply awful places such as the South, McDonald's, trailer parks, church, gas station bathrooms, political conventions, kid's choir recitals, burn wards, 12 step meetings, Fallujah, skid row I obviously avoid without mixed feelings. But everywhere I go to, knowing the field is rife with experiential landmines changes my step. The very gait of my walk as I meander through the mental map of events to come, events as they are, and my role thereof is molded from fearlessly staring and navigating through the places I always try to avoid. The intense concentration upon the goals, the values, the real, as well as the effortless faith in my own adaptability makes the space between avoidance and anticipation a state of flow. Everything in the universe is balance, so perhaps entering the very regions we try to avoid balances us from the inside out, maximizing our flow. To get away we must come near. Avoidance is anticipation.