same shape, always changing.

I had dinner tonight at a very nice little house with a lovely little koi pond in back, and a little jet of water spurting up in a nice arc (I think it should be a parabola of some sort, maybe deformed by air resistance). The shape of that spurt is the same, but the water is constantly changing, an endless flow of water and air molecules, in and up and around and over and back down again. Same shape, always changing. The whole universe is like that, you know. Eternal, always the same, but always changing. Eternal and constant is the shimmering brightness of a single moment of simple being; changing is the configuration of the world in that moment, as your breath moves and your neurons move and the cat in front of you moves and the molecules of your desk move. The Way is this changing-unchanging of the universe, a path we find inside ourselves, a way of being in the world; fight it by refusing to accept things as they are (before trying to change them, if that's what you want), and you'll be miserable. Move with it, and you'll be like the butcher whose knife never needed sharpening, because it went through all the empty spaces in the body of the ox, separating them with no effort.

Everything has its trade-offs, I guess. Something you accept as a condition of the activity, weighing your options and deciding what's important and how much trouble a thing is worth. It's probably an emotional decision, but you can still imagine it as an equation:

(paycheck for rent and sushi) + (self-esteem) + (daily schedule) = (daily schedule) + (having to get up in the morning) + (45-90 minute variable commute)

Of course I care what happens, I have feelings and everything.

Of course, I also need to resist the urge to be a shithead. Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I should go ahead and indulge. Really. Bad idea. I should just relax and see what's really happening.

Choices, consequences.