(picture found at http://www.businessinsider.com/touching-the-void-2012-10)
I have no idea why I do the things that I do.
Kyudo. Japanese. Iaido. Live in Japan. Enjoy the things I do.
Why instead of pursuing monetary gain or fame or more practical skills do I do the things I do.
On a perfect day off I'm lost in the woods or on top of a mountain.
Why?
I can think of reasons, but in the end, when I don't do the things I want to do it eats away at the inside of my stomach. Like a legion in my brain it consumes all in the black thought that I'm not doing what I want.
A part of me wants to do it.
A part of me feels like it has to do it.
Like a sticky living pieces of thread wound together, I don't know which is which.
It is only in the moment of no-thought, that I know I am right in the world.
But that action which propels me into no thought is fate decided. It is a step in the world which I cannot take back.
Perhaps that is courage, to take that step regardless of myriad fears, those purple clouds.
I want more and more of that time inside. I want to take those steps, but the outside world comes in eating away. Taxes, applications, messages, bills, TVs, toys, drugs, people ...
I sit now and look at all of this. I've been here enough to know I can't separate the two. It is taking that step how I want to, in this world I didn't choose. Half and half, the ultimate compromise. I can do that.
Then again, I never chose this situation. I can't decide to have or not have the sky or these cities, they live on without me. I am a noble guest here. It's half me and half everything else. Blurring those lines is becoming the undescribable art.
I don't know why I do the things I do. That thought doesn't change much either.
I guess we'll just see how it goes.
...
Funny thing is, I'm sitting next to my wife as I wrote this and she asked what I was writing about.
"I'm writing about why I want to practice budo."
"Isn't it because it gives you satisfaction?"
So simple! Such a simple answer. Because it makes me happy.
"But why when I could be out making more money and getting things done do I go and shoot bows and arrows at the dojo?"
"Then go make more money!"
When you're gone, how much money you earned or didn't earn wont make a difference, but the lives you interacted with and the people you inspired will. When times are hard money can help, but it can't replace peace and strength.
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