The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul

Hi G---! A little bit of catch-up here: First, thank you very much for the book Sorry, Everybody and the, continued, subscription to “The Sun.” The book is a reminder that half the voters did indeed try to topple the regime; we are dealing here with the turbulence from a butterfly wing making a huge difference. “The Sun” magazine has become part of my life; my thanks, friend. In an effort to “pay you forward,” I give gift subscriptions to a couple of people, thereby spreading the words and your kindness. The first thing I read are the “Sunbeams;” there hasn’t been a time yet that I haven’t found something worthwhile; either poignant, quotable or pithy. Today I dropped off something at “The Big House” and found a poem from “The Sun” tacked to my son’s wall. It was, I think, called “The Price of Grief.” I don’t know what meaning or emotion the poem evokes in my boy, but isn’t it something that he has been moved enough to take the page from the magazine and make it a part of his wall decoration? Your note from 18 April speaks of “the 4th dimensional space-time construct” and its possible plans for you. This is recurring wonder of mine. It is indeed those flaps of the unnoticed butterflies that seem to guide us toward our destiny; much more so, it seems, than the grand plans and schemes we fashion for ourselves. The idea that we are masters of our own course is a hallucination of self grandeur. I do believe, however, that we can have an intention of our course. In keeping with my fascination for sailing ships, our life is like the voyage of a square rigger: We set off with an intention of sailing to a particular place; let’s say we intend to go from Boston to Cape Town. Due to the vagaries of wind, tide and current we may wander all over the map, going far off a direct course, making wide deviations from the route we’d “planned” to take. But, if we keep to our original intention, we most often wind up, at some time that may be far off our “schedule,” sailing right into the harbor we’d intended. This is, of course, unless we’ve changed our intention, our mind, and voyaged off to Pitcairn instead; chucking “real life” for yet another fantasy among the bare-breasted savages. I liked the line you used, “… how many subtle trajectory shifts took place to get me to this point.” As you said, the connections getting you to the “here and now” may stretch back forever. Thanks for the book suggestion. I’ll make a note to take a look at Best Destiny. Take care, my friend. Even though my own words may be a little sparse or there may be lengthy gaps in delivery, I do value your continued correspondence. Russ