I Don't Know

 

(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!"