Prologue: Last Things First

I'm avoiding decomp. I don't want to return to default, and yet I haven't been able to synthesize the experience enough to weave it in to default. Or maybe I'm just clinging, I don't know. It's hard to let go of a place and time in which you feel completely at ease.

For a little over a week, I felt essentially no stress. D'you know how liberating that is? To not feel the grinding of fear and worry and pain? For the first time in uncountable years I was actually at ease. But nature abhors a vacuum, so the physical manifestations of stress are flooding back in like Barbarians over (under, through) a medieval wall. Headaches? Check. Stomache pain? Check? Nausea? Check. Body aches? Check. All disappeared while I was out there in the dust. All have returned in force.

My friend LingLing and I talked earlier this week about living in integrity: that cellular/spiritual knowledge that we're livin' right, livin' as we're supposed to. Is this some sign that I'm NOT? And if not, what do I do? The default world situation I'm in is not one that I can extricate my Self from quickly - I have massive debt to pay and I will do so willingly. I borrowed, now I must return. And I really do want to practice law. I want to be an instrument of social justice and order. I want to use my powers for good, not evil. It's a matter of finding the balance between what I need to do to regain solvency and what I WANT to do to live in integrity.

I know that the culture of the playa - it's generosity, it's economy, it's openness - isn't really sustainable out here. But I feel like parts of it are reproduceable and I want to not only carry those parts with me, but foster them to the greatest extent I can. Am I just wishing on a star? Am I clinging to a good, spirit lifting time? Or is there really a path out there on which I can do this...?