SUCH A MINT-CHOCOLATE TREAT

Is it perplexing or tragic that are present position in life is the steadily regurgitated by-product of countless decision sloppily enforced by our clueless younger selves? Every five, ten years, we occasionally, cautiously  look back and think: "What the hell was I thinking?" The answer is clear: We were thinking what we thought. Those thoughts led to actions, and those thoughts led to here. Did we control what we thought, or did our thoughts control us? Right now you are thinking certain things that will lead you to do something tonight that will impact tomorrow. Perhaps it's that extra-scoop bowl of mint-chocolate ice cream you're cautiously debating to devour before bed; maybe it's the late-night YouTube binge that will leave you decidedly cranky come dawn's reddened crack. Either way, bilogical and psychological processes will be undertaken that will alter your path. That we don't think of these ostensibly minor decisions as profound is all the more proof of their darkly cloaked stealth. ,

Even now, a silvery, slippery cascade of sensations is running through your mind as you read these dumb words. You could have been doing anything else in the world than the very clear thing that you're doing at this exact moment. That you are scanning my sentences ensures that a billion other choices have been closed-off for good. You could have been one click away from stumbling across a website whose information just might have changed your whole life to come. Or else, had you not been reading this blog at this moment, you could have tripped on the edge of the just-barely-jutting-out kitchen-table leg and sprained your right ankle, which might have led to you getting  a nasty infection which could have spread to your thighs, oh what a fine mess. A green, greasy splodge of veins bulging out, right next to your crotch. Beauty, eh.

Yet you are here, reading this blog, and your life has been changed. Not by my words themselves, but simply by your presence in time at this random spot. All because some stuff in your noggin muttered 'look here and look now'. The thoughts that we think in our heads reach right out into the world. Are they always riding shotgun with us, or are we just along with them for their ride? Fucked if I know, but we always end up somewhere, and it's usually not behind the podium where we thought we would be. The self of your past sure has some explaining to do, but that person is gone, checked out long ago, even as they share your same psychic space and wonder as you do if you should have one scoop or two before bed, such a mint-chocolate treat.