Market

I was running some errands today after an appointment where I ended up at my favorite grocery store, the Metropolitan Market in Proctor, a northern suburb of Tacoma, Washington. I finished shopping and taking the groceries to the van, and went back from my double shot mocha.

While standing there I was suddenly taken by all the activity around me. I went blank and just stood there and let my mind absorb all the sights, sounds, smells, etc., especially the people. Just watching and listening to all the people going about their lives seemingly oblivious to everything else outside their attention.

It was an interesting experience to just stand there taking it all in, and reminding me it's something we rarely, if ever for some people, do, to see the world around them realizing you're just one of many, and to imagine the greater immediate and bigger world beyond your own.

The grocery store is the best place to see the world, the whole expanse of human geography on a global scale to bring you all those products and all those people working there with all the customers going about their lives in one place, where you are.

It's a gentle reminder of the whole world we live, all there before you, if only we pay attention.

Answers

Answers lie not in those most like us, for they only reaffirm what we already think, but lies in those unlike us, even opposite of us, for they will show us the infinite choices we didn’t see let alone imagine.

A Thought

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Living

Living shields us from the pain of dying, but in the end, always loses.

Alone

"I am always alone, I am never alone."

So said a National Park ranger about his work in Yellowstone National Park in the winter where you can totally escape any presence of humanity except the snowmobile you need to get there, but once there you are totally surrounded by everything but anything human.

This applies anywhere and everywhere to anyone and everyone, it only takes the presence of mind to see it and sense it. You can be standing in the middle of Times Square and say the same thing about being in the presence of something completely man-made.

It's just up to you then and there.