Continuing what Mr.Wallace says,

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

So, with that in mind, I sit here in a kitchen in the middle of London, the middle of what used to be the centre of the world.  I walk around this city, this grey city of buildings from times lost, and each person I see, each person that I look at, I realize is here in London for their own reasons.  It is a simple thought, a simple idea.  I overhear conversations such as “this tattoo on my back….” or “my mom called me today and said…” and each one reminds me that we all have and live in our own reality.  The reality that is our lives, our own personal choices and decisions.  These bring us to where we are at this very moment, decisions that make us move around the world, that create ideas of fear and anger inside, or perhaps, as Mr Wallace talks about, being able to truly care about other people, and sacrifice for them over and over in myriad, petty and unsexy ways everyday.  Sacrifice is easy to talk about perhaps, but it is hard to understand.  When someone does something for you, or that affects you in such a deep and profound way, how is it that we are meant to accept it, understand it, feel it, live it? How is it that each time I feel this, I don’t understand myself, I don’t know why this person has done it — maybe I need to have more faith in who I am as a person, the things that I can offer.

London, unlike Paris, is not a place to be alone I find.  It does not lend itself easily to alone-ness, to that sense that, the city will openly accept and acquire you into it’s folds without a problem.  In London, I always get a sense of coming and going.  A sense that, to be here, means to want to be other places, or, to be here means that you are just fine in London with those to whom you are close to.  London is a place to be thought about, not wrote about.  Do we always find in those places that we feel so comfortable the ability to think clearly, or to understand ourselves better?  Or is it just being away from what at the time is considered to be our normal life, or normal place of residence?

My life has changed recently, my life has moved forward in ways unprecedented, unlike anything else in my past.  And here I am, I find myself here in London town, on the edge of what I can manage right now.  On the edge of my own personal thoughts and ideas, and thinking constantly about what is next, what is about to come.