Just in case you read this God, I don’t really mean that. I mean serving in Heaven has its appeal too. And one day my broken tooth will fall out and I’ll be able to eat meat again like a lion instead of gumming it to death like a toothless hag. Until then, I’ll continue to eat more pears and drink the juice out of the can.

The day was clear and warm, without a breath of air to fan the sweat and cool me off, I had to try and balance the here and now with what happens next, you know when they let us out of lockdown. It’s likely to be a surrealistic future of bioengineering, virtual reality, and artificial consciousness. I can see pseudo-psychological cults flourishing in the aftermath. How do you end a pandemic anyway?

I have nothing but time now and I want to fill this huge gap in my soul that has been haunting me for years.  I built a fortress around my heart that became a prison. The warden has fled the scene. There are no guards guarding the door. No one is holding the keys. In fact, the doors are all open. Should I make a prison break or stay here where I’ve been for years, a place that has become comfortable through familiarity. This place has become my home. 

This prison has a name. It’s called the comfort zone. It’s an insidious place.  It’s a place where danger is disguised as safety. Nothing happens in the comfort zone. And that’s the point – you don’t grow, you don’t improve, you don’t achieve – the only thing that happens is time passes. And time, as we know, is precious.

You kill time in the comfort zone. But you might phrase it as biding time while you gather resources, wait for the stars to align, or wait for permission to act. You think you’re killing time, all the while time is killing you.

Is the point of life to survive or to thrive?  You tend to stay on the bottom rung of society if survival is your only ambition.  Thriving comes with greater risk, but the rewards are also greater.

It is better to burn out than to fade away?1

A raven landed on the back fence, spread its wings, and flew away to my neighbor’s chimney. I could swear it had been watching me since midmorning. It’s beady little black eyes peering into my soul.

I’ve been collecting dust for a while now, playing it safe, coloring in-between the lines.  COVID-19 has changed all of that. The physical lockdown has made me realize that I’ve been in mental lockdown for longer than I care to admit.

But now the gates are open. It’s time to break out, stagnate, or die!

*Said the Kurgan in the movie, Highlander. He was paraphrasing Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost who said it is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.