The only redeeming quality I can find in human beings is their ability to be loved.

I should be satisfied with such simple questions as, "Why does Ivory soap float?" I am simply satisfied enough with the smell of cow patties that just finished roasting in the summer sun somewhere in a distant Oklahoma pasture. The images flit through my head with the word 'happiness' filling up bubbles that burst once they float too far.

I should know that internal battles within myself afford nothing, such as wanting to go to yoga because I know it is good for me as opposed to wanting to go because I have a true desire of it; and that in the end I don't go because I can't afford it which is a decision influenced by depression because of the realization that I am totally broke. But somehow those kinds of egregious arguments, egregious to future direction and egregious to well-being, bring on about 15 minutes of tranquility that becomes shattered by a phone ringing or my own labored breathing.

And I find myself again in front of this computer, in almost the same exact spot I was in 2 years ago. But that gap is filled with extraordinary adventure. I once had imagined this adventure as a fuel for everyday affairs. But it is not. Instead I find my focus fading again and that inevitable since of "what now" settling in like September morning-dew over my medulla oblongata. Gotta. Gotta get up and go to work tomorrow.

I gotta be satisfied with the mystery of why Ivory soap floats. Even though I may actually know why it floats. I know people mean well when they lobby congress to protect open land and near extinct species of animals. I applaud it. But we are failing to protect another precious treasure. Mystery. I depend on it. And I feel my adventures during the last two years have taught me more than anything to destroy the mysteries and, gasp, to lose faith in human beings. And when this inevitably bred contempt, I lost interest in human beings. I struggle to regain this. I want to lose this existential weakness.

Amidst all of this I find myself thankful. I am thankful I did not marry and have children before now. It would be a much different and terrible perplexion if these additional characters were involved. Oh, how I could cover the ground of whether or not that is selfishness. Who doesn't have those battles? Parents do. Spouses do. Pastors do. Politicians do. A majority of children. I see myself in them. But it is just a part. Right now I am only fulfilling a part. There are other things I should be doing. And I don't.

When you are on a diving board, with your toes hanging over the edge, ankles poised, and you make that spring...one moment you are completely out of the water, and the next...completely in it.

That moment before the feet leave the board but right after you lift your ankles for the spring forward, that's where I am right now. And my fear lies in the fact that I have always had an inclination to walk away. I know I can't walk on water. But I can swim.

This tells me there is a lack of love in my life. Not romantic love. Faith like love. The kind of love that drives someone to solve mysteries. The kind of love that drives someone to do something more. The kind of love that allows you to sleep at night. As Roger Waters lyricized, I have been "Attracted by a paling way of feeling".