bookofmirrors | Feb. 16th, 2004

On my way home tonight from

tc_borderpagans (which was a kickass discussion, by the way), I noticed 2 things.

First, that the Mega Millions lottery has apparently not yet been won. The billboard showed the jackpot at $177 million. Wow. What I couldn't do with that money.

Second, a gas station. Don't remember which one. Corner of Powers Ferry and the north 120 loop. It's irrelevant. The point was, I could have stopped there and purchased as many lottery tickets for the aforementioned jackpot as my budget would allow.

But I didn't.

Not because I have a moral issue with the lottery. Not even because I think it would be a waste of money.

Let me explain.

I sometimes have conversations with myself. Whether I'm playing devil's advocate for myself, or whether it's another facet of myself, or whether it's deity of some sort (eminent or transcendant), I have no idea. I don't suppose it matters, except perhaps in how much I trust the "other" voice.

So, tonight, a conversation ensued around this topic.

Voice: Stop there. Buy a lottery ticket.
Me: Yeah, right.
Voice: No, really. Trust me.
Me: Uh huh. (All the while thinking simultaneously of the wonderful things I could do for myself and others with that money, and of the odds of winning, and of my own propensity for impoverishing myself in one form or another)
Voice: Don't you want to be rich?
Me: (long pause) No, I don't. (Noting that indescribable feeling I have when something True has just been expressed)
Voice: You don't?
Me: No.
Voice: (long pause) Why not?
Me: Because being poor is a smokescreen. If I didn't have to work at making a living, paying bills, having to worry about all those stupid mundane issues in life, I wouldn't have Maslow's hierarchy as an excuse anymore. I'd have to work on ME. There'd be nothing there to stop me, to protect me.

*sigh* Why is it the obvious that eludes me? When I "hear" something with the ring of Truth to it, it's always with a sense of "oh, I knew that - of course I knew it - I just didn't know it". Replace the final word with whatever similar word you like - grok, comprehend, understand, KNOW, express... whatever. It's the mental equivalent of your eyes focusing on one of those 3-D pictures (the name of which is eluding me right now).

Well, if knowing is half the battle (insert appropriate after-school cartoon jingle here), then I still have half the work to do. But I wanted to jot that down on "paper" to preserve it. I didn't want to lose that moment of clarity.

And now, I must go tend to the sickly-ish