Dont ask me if Im having fun yet.

Location: Tallhassee, FL to St. Joe Beach, FL
Pictures: here.
Video: here.

Since you know that I am at a college campus, if you don’t know how this day starts then you have not being paying attention.

And when I walk into this Starbucks at FSU there is a one girl whose eyes I meet. She is wearing a white shirt, and black leggings with black Uggs. Her curly black hair shields her face at first when she is bent over looking at her books, but when she looks up at me, her hair falls back to the side and reveals beautiful olive skin and brilliant blue eyes and lips, lips, lips.

This look that she gives me stirs something in me. You know the stirring, you have had it plenty of times. Like your body hits a speed bump and you can't remember what your immediate purpose is any longer. I may have said once or twice to say that two seconds of eye contact was significant, but I am thinking that it is not the time so much as the intensity of it.

And I walked to the counter and ordered a Grande Americano that I did not need or want and I glanced back. And how this happens, how each person knows exactly the right time to take that second glance, I will never know.

And so I went to her table and I sat right down next to her and then I excused myself and that I was having some trouble getting hooked up to the network, which I wasn't. She asks me if I'm parent. Because it is parents weekend. Thats probably why. Pretty sure.

It wasn't until an hour later that I realized that we were not only still talking but that we were kind of talking over each other, the way that excited kids talk about vacations and candy. And that we talked about religion and we talked about philosophy and at one point I thought she might be close to crying.

And then I think about the fact that many, many women have cried in front of me. I have a knack for that, for making people cry. And I hear the same thing: that they don’t know why they can talk to me like the way they talk, and I try to figure that out myself as well.

Shockingly simple. It's not anything more than good, solid, sincere listening. And the right questions. And little interruption. And not coming back with a “I had that happen once” and its not solving problems or providing answers. In order to get the real deal out of someone you have to force yourself to shut the hell up while they are talking.

That’s all Socrates did. All that fucker did was ask questions. He barely made an observation of his own until it was formulated by answers and postulations from others. Is it this? Is it like this? Does it feel like this or like this? Does it include this? Is it similar to this? And then bang, you have the definition of true love, or true beauty, or why parents don't understand you.

And so I told this girl, the real thing that we talked about, was allowing the world to take its course, and to understand that if she continued to fight for the positive choice, and to trust that she would gain more by her tryst with the unknown than by capitulating to her survival instincts, then she could accomplish almost any damn thing she liked.

Because this girl, like most people at age 21, and all ages aside from that, are freaked the fuck out. They get information from everywhere about the "path", but rarely do they question the motivation of the people who show them the map. And when they do focus their efforts without any concern for where it may ultimately lead them or who what the rumor mill will produce, than that is a pure transcendental act.

Do you know how good it feels for someone to tell you that it will be all ok? Yeah, religion figured that out a little while ago.

And why is religion so powerful and so many flock to it? Because people feel lost, because people aren’t happy with what they don't have, and people aren’t happy with what they do have, and people are downright frightened because when there is a moment when they finally do feel happy, then they are frightened that it will dissolve into thin air. And religion says:  fear not, here is something better waiting and God has a plan. And that's good enough for about a trillion people.

And you know what? Fear not in one of two ways, (1) because God tells you this and you believe or (2) because you believe all on your lonesome. Same ending, different mapping.

So what is philosophy, spirituality and transcendental thought but religion without a god? Not much else, is your answer.

Except absent of a God, in the case of a transcendental or spiritual method or path, that "way" or the "path" is absent. But that’s the point, free thinkers understand that free will dictates that there is no predetermination. Someone said, and I dont feel like looking it up,"This is my way; where is yours?'--thus I answered those who asked me 'the way.' For the way-- that does not exist." Religion provides a nicely paved highway, but also provides a bunch of guide rails and no parking signs as well.

Which gets the mind and the soul, umm, no where. But it sure is comfortable. And comfortable makes a lot of bodies and minds soft in this world. I get it, change is scary, but it's inevitable and it is normal and it is the catalyst for spiritual growth if you embrace it.

Some prefer to find the path on their own, to trust that life is a bit ahead of them and will pave as they go, and others like to know that there is an Exit Zero with clouds and wine from water and chicks with harps. Or there is also a burning damnation waiting as well if you turn right on red.

Look, I know I'm not saying shit that hasn't been said a million times before a million different ways. If I am, then take a visit to the bookstore and pick up "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." You can read it in about an hour.

I'm just saying it because it's going on in my life, and I happen to be in a period where my mind is focusing on good, positive things. And that's right where I need to be.

So yeah, that’s what we talked about, in brief. We ended on recognizing that a little discomfort, personally, or financially, is going to be involved in almost every decision, but it shouldn’t be a barrier. As long as you get that, than shit gets a whole lot easier to wrap your head around.

Its like stepping into a tub of hot water, the tender bits always hurt a little bit but once you settle in, its womblike. And tender bits shouldn’t keep you from taking a nice, long, hot bath.

Please tell me something that is rewarding that is also not a little bit challenging.

I left a little and took a little and now we are both fuller, more complete humans. And that makes me want to say the word fuck while shaking my head back and forth and just smiling at the beautiful insanity of it all.

Mid-afternoon: I reached the Gulf of Mexico where Route 98 meets Bald Point State Park. And I was already feeling pretty filled up from the day when I parked and sat and looked out across the very calm water and I smelled the salty breeze and the barely detectable smell of dead fish.

And I realized in that moment that for sure one of my absolute top five requirement of wherever I may decide to spend my dying days, which are now incidentally, as all of ours are, it must be by the ocean. That’s really all I have to say about that.

I had lunch in Apalachichola which I will not ever pronounce correctly, which has a little protected inlet that looks exactly like the scene from Forrest Gump where LT. Dan shows up to work for him and Gump jumps ship.

I walked down to the docks I ran into a couple of guys who were running their days oyster catch through a long tube contraption that probably has a proper name, but I will call it an oyster cleaner, which is what it was. It was about ten feet long and had a drill type of thing in the middle and when they turned it on and stuck the oysters in one end, it scrambled them all up and shot water onto them and they came out the ass end free of all the crap they came out of the water with.

The funny part was that the main dude, the dude who looked like he was in charge, he told me he knew the man who sold the man the boat that Forrest Gump crashed into the dock. Yeah no shit.

And when I sat down by myself on the outdoor deck at Carolines Fine Dining, which was right on the water, I asked Nicole, who was my beautifully smiley waitress who was also dressed up as a witch in purple and black and complete with a huge witch hat, if the oysters I would be ordering were from the guy who knew the guy who sold the guy the boat. And yes, they would be.

So I had a half dozen raw which were unbelievably perfect, and a half dozen broiled with butter and bacon and garlic and parmesan that were so good that when I put the first one into my mouth, I drooled onto my plate. That is no lie.

And I had a couple of jacks and cokes, as I am so inclined to do when I am in the South. I was having fun. And so was Nicole, because she said so, and she said I was fun, and we were all having fun.

That’s what happens when you start having fun: the people around you start having fun too. Which is why I hate the saying “Having fun yet?” because it is usually used by people who rarely have it.

If you have gotten this far and still don't need a bucket, I do have a touch more. "It is only wafer thin."
Here it is: