Home Stretch

One of the worst parts about travelling is arriving to find that you’re already there.

65 miles. 1,074 miles. 3,547 miles. 5,919 miles…

No matter how many miles away we fly, it never seems to be far enough to escape what’s going on in those brain folds.

Travelling a long way from home always seems to dredge up a bunch of old stuff that should have been dealt with a long time ago. We’re always over that baggage allowance.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder.

But it’s through a pink-tinted telescope.

It’s not really

Humans have extraordinary brains but they’re difficult to drive.

The problem is that our brain is so powerful — so good at imagining the various possible states of reality — that our body doesn’t realize it’s not real.

A few hundred years ago, some writer who fancied himself a philosopher pointed this out with the witty phrase, “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”

We’ve all drifted into a dangerous thought and, before you know it, you’re there: heart pumping and mind racing, vividly day-dreaming the worst possible outcome as if it were happening right now.

But it’s not really happening.

It almost certainly never will.

And even if it does, worrying about it won’t help.

So you may as well think about something nice instead.

 

 

Last night I thought I died

I don’t dream much, but every few years I have a dream that sticks with me; as vivid as if it were real.

The other night I had one, and in it, I died of COVID.

At first, it was all running around as one does in dreams, trying to figure out what was going on; why nobody would talk to me.

And then I realised — I was dead.

That was it—no more Ben.

All I could think to myself was, “THAT’S IT. You’re DONE. All you’ll ever have done is what you’ve done already.”

And it was sickening.

I was angry.

I’d done nothing, and now I couldn’t do anything about it.

It was all over, and I had just gotten started.

Boy, was I happy when that alarm clock woke me up.

Happy to be alive!