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The reality adjustment business is huge. Not only the trade in drugs and drink, but all the subtle and not-so-subtle remedies for all the things we don’t like in our lives – and particularly the popular paths to new, improved, enlightened, creative selves.

Being an old soldier on these route marches, I appreciate their appeal. I remember the mini-euphoria that would occur when one found a fresh fix to try, with its promises of a new ‘me’. This would be the answer to my discontent; this would make me happy again!

But after trudging doggedly up the track for a while, I’d notice that nothing had changed, fundamentally.

The problem, however, wasn’t the product. It was the notion that it was necessary. Where do we get this calamitous notion?

Well, we get it from the same source as spawns the ‘me’ –
that slippery fish that thinks it runs the show
and spends its life in discontent, trying to change it all.

Instead of focusing on self-improvement strategies,
first find the slippery fish,
hook it, reel it in
gaze into its lidless eye:

if this is your real and improvable ‘self’,

what’s looking?

~