To Be

To be, or not to be? That is the question.

As I walked downstairs for that elusive elixir of water in the doldrums of night,¹ that mushy thinking thing in my head did what it did best. Unable to help itself. Pondering. Sometimes racing, sometimes meandering. Seemingly never at rest.

Two threads of thought in particular stuck out to me:

1. The shadows are scary. As I steer my conscious brain towards intentional, mindful thought, my subconscious continuously tries to steer my experience back towards an instinctive context of self-preservation, seeing snakes and tigers lurking behind tall blades of grass.

I turned the tap. Fresh spring water from rains and snows a hundred miles away flowed straight into my cup.

2. What a fortuitous experience it is to have clean, running tap water at all times. An entire previous generation of humans laid the groundwork for this to happen.^{2 3}

I automatically adjusted the glass of water I held in my hand. Am I here? Why am I here? What of those pioneers before me? Those parents and children. Thieves and warmakers. Poets and doctors. Inventors and lovers and mentors and friends. They were. We were.

And while we're at it, it's almost a miracle that that same lizard brain projecting visions of monsters into those strange shadows also allows me to carry this glass of water upright, gyroscopically, effortlessly, allowing me to concentrate on the tapestry of conscious thought.

What a strange world it is to experience. What a miracle it is to be.