I shrugged off my pack. Lying there on my back, I looked up at the roof of the inn and, staring at the glowing moon and clouds, I thought, really, we're all in the same position. (It occurred to me that I had often thought that in similar situations, in moments of utter desperation. I would like to be known as an action philosopher.)
We all believe we can choose our own path from among the many alternatives. But perhaps it's more accurate to say that we make the choice unconsciously. I think I did-- but know I knew it, because I was able to put it into words. But I don't mean this in the fatalistic sense; we're constantly making choices. With the breaths we take every day, with the expression in our eyes, with the daily actions we do over and over, we decide as though by instinct. And so some of us will inevitably find ourselves rolling around in a puddle of some roof in a strange place with a takeout katsudon in the middle of winter, looking up at the night sky, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
-Taken from, Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto-
The Gospels give no direct evidence concerning the extent to which at the time of his leaving home he may already have been aware of the mission which lay ahead of him, yet Jesus was moved in his decision to forsake the life of Nazareth by detecting in the voice of John the Baptist something that appealed to his heart..... Certainly it was spiritual hunger which brought him to decide to leave his mother and his numerous kinfolk. It is not so certain, however, that his decision won the amiable consent of the family, especially not the consent of his male cousins. In the straitened circumstances of the extended family it was no easy thing for them to lose the contribution from Jesus just when he was at the peak of his productive years. His mother Mary, or any rate his cousins James and Joseph, Simon and Jude and the others, were not always completely in sympathy with him..... Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 record explicitly how for a long time his kindred bore scant respect for him. From their point of view the shadow perhaps revealed no more than his being an irresponsible dropout from the world of reality-- a man with the will to desert an establish living at Nazareth and be off to the barren wilderness of Judea.
-Taken from, A Life of Jesus, by Endo Shusaku-
I guess I can never be one of those hooker/waitress model/actress who just pack up everything and just head west to Hollywood, to try my chance at a Russian roulette game of life.
I guess, I just don't have the guts to sleep on the living room floor.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
bound with all the weight of all the words I tried to say, chained to all the places that I never wished to stay
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