If the one aspiration you have in life is being denied you
by circumstances beyond your control, is there any point in living just to
continue being alive? Is it enough? It’s a serious question.
I suppose it probably is, since the life imperative was ever
irrational, or at least an unsolvable mystery.
* * *
I met Heidi in the wood today. She’s a young woman who said
she lives at the top end of the Shire, but whose parents live the other side of
the wood just beyond what I consider to be the Shire’s bounds. She was
returning from a visit to them by way of the wood. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?
A bit Little Red Riding Hood-ish. And she was wearing a red rain jacket with a
hood, which she put on when it started raining. Odd.
It was also odd that her name should be Heidi, since to my
knowledge I’ve never met one before. And she didn’t know that the part of the Shire
in which she lives is the part from which George Eliot’s father and paternal
ancestors originated. I thought everybody knew that; it’s the Shire’s only
claim to fame. That’s odd, too.
So now I’m wondering whether I imagined (or, more to the
point, created) the whole thing. Some wise men ancient and modern claim that we
each create our own reality, and can change that reality with sufficient force
of will. Could mine now be slipping into the realm of folk tales? It’s a
serious question.
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