Psychic wars & other manias

                                        Portrait of a Survivor

Meet "The Dog with No Name"

He is from Oklahoma. Really. He was on what more-or-less amounts to a "death watch" in a "high kill" animal shelter when our paths crossed. Add to that, he also was suffering from "pneumonia." As you might imagine, we had a "very complicated" first few days together. Now, he is on watch with me -- over me, next to me -- is almost well and runs like the wind.

That is the way many of the most relevant events in our lives happen. They happen because they are meant to happen, it seems, as I think was the case in terms of my encounter with this little guy. Not to sound like a Calvinist or a devotee of "double predestination," at least in a religious sense, I do believe that fate / destiny are among the factors which influence and affect and shape our lives.

Whether it is a matter of seemingly deciding to step to the left or to the right the moment before a bullet passes, a matter of being aboard the right or the wrong jetliner when a bomb goes off, a matter of meeting the right or the wrong woman when love explodes or even a matter so simple as being the right or the wrong individual encountering a lost and abandoned animal -- I have a sense that the result which occurs is because it is meant to be / written to be / pre-destined to be .... I have a sense that such events are among the primary, episodic features of our lives and that we really have no control over them.

Which is not to say that I do not believe in individual responsibility for our actions or inactions. Hmmmm .... an inexplicable contradiction of beliefs, it would seem. It is not, the way I mean it, but this evening is not the time to try to decipher the riddle beyond saying this: Basically, I sense we walk the steps we are written to walk, but we have free will and are able to change the direction where we walk at any given time .... and, if we do shift directions, another set of steps which always has existed emerges.

I think I will stop now, before I dig this shifting tunnel any deeper. I have a thesis and an antithesis, but where is the synthesis? Still searching for it, I guess. Everything about life is a paradox.

As you might surmise, I am back from Lac Superieur -- or Lake Superior, as the Angles call it. The sky seemed the same, as did the water, but the shoreline and the people were very different. As for me, I have not yet decided if I am very different now from the individual I was in the past -- from the man I was when I lived by and on The Lake -- or the same, or if it really makes any difference. I might write about these thoughts, but not tonight.

Yes, back from .... returned from The Lake and a few other places.

So, how are you? Great music, hah? Love the guitar work .... it is spectacular.

By the way, The Dog is part Papillion and part Long-haired Chihuahua, a lone veterinary record indicates, and, at least, one other undetermined part. Another part, I say, because his hunting instincts are as strong as I ever have seen in purebred hunters. I began tracking / investigating his past, but stopped when I decided it would be best, probably, for both he and I if we acted like the world just began the day we met. Everything indicates he had a happy existence that was tragically interrupted. I do not wish to know more.

The vet's best guess is that he is about three years old, and I have designated his birthday to be August 18 -- again, the day we met.

I will let you know when we decide on a name ....

It will take me a few days or longer to get my focus readjusted to the insane world in which we exist .... I hope you will bear with me .... actually, I am not sure I really am back, or want to be back .... I might wander off again ....