its so elusive. the feeling of happiness with the here and now. where there is no care left, nothing to enter the mind, nothing to be changed. no more to be collected, completed, fixed or fumbled with. where the weather inside and out are perfect, no bugs to swap at, no place to get to, no thing to run from. to be floating in a sea of tranquility and to be content with it, day in and day out…where is this moment? why with all the catchings of contemporary comfort do we all feel so agitated?

perhaps it is part of the game. that if it were easy we would all put down the joysticks and give up. that in order to keep our interest up things have to fall apart, the car has to stay cleaned, the wife remembered, the plants pruned and the office well oiled. that if i were content i would give up. the progress in my game would also cease, and i would fade into nothing. no seat at the center, no appreciation, no recognition, no more shine on the car, no more congratulatory looks from my contemporaries or family, no more meaning. so ahead i push, into the trouble, into the mess and unknown and into the disorder to find the stones and shine them up.

Upon completion of a certain task, a calmness comes. After playing hard, the relaxation is different. It is deserved. Iike spending well earned money.  the hard work, the untangling of the knots, the difficulties of it all pays off with points and ribbons. with praise and positioning in an imagined alignment we have also made up. our game is then restarted, in our minds and in our realities, with only us paying attention to the imaginary problems we are detangling ourselves from. problems brought about to us, for us, by our own minds and thoughts for us to solve in order to one day getting to that point of relaxation we were clamoring for all along.