LEARNING TO LIVE

Saturday, May 12, 2007 6:52:38 PM

I read somewhere once, 'I dont know what we should hate more, the power that crushes us or our endless ability to endure.'

Hard to imagine a few months ago I was sitting in the desert. I'd gone back home to Ireland to face a tragedy and wound up wandering down to Malaga Spain to either find myself or lose myself. Then across to Morroco hitch hiking down through Fes and Taza.

Sought the desert like it would be some kinda purging or purgatory or ablution. Hiked out a ways and sat there for 2 days like I expected something to happen. Just sat there waiting. After the second day I just shrugged my shoulders and said to myself, 'Well, this was a bit stupid.' Turned around and headed back to civilisation. The village locals thought I was mad for even going in the first place. Little did they know.

Sometimes we go on because there's nothing else to do. We survive. Not live. Just survive. We build our house of cards and of a sudden a wind hits and they all come tumbling down. And the home we try and find our way back to is no longer there.

Think, feel, and maybe hope once more. Face the tragedy that mocks and articulates our own mortality. Bury our pain in the cemetery with the rest of the worlds misery. Drag our own weak light into this sunless dark. Look for some semblance of redemption.

Forget. And move on. Take up living instead of surviving again. Remember old friends...make some new ones. Get involved. Maybe live life deliberately.