call•me•jonah

An hour and a half ago I set off for a jog to the river. I’d been working in front of the computer all day and decided it was time a got some exercise. I don’t know how far it is to the river, I ride my bike down there once in a while, but I’d never run it.

When I got there it was dark and I was alone. I walked around briefly, stretched, and listened to the flowing river. I sat on a rock in the middle and meditated, focusing on the rushing water and my breathing. I haven’t meditated in over a year now. But I enjoy it when I do. Like sleeping awake. Or walking consciously into a dream. A very peaceful feeling.

It is amazing the stream of endless thoughts and images that flow through your mind as you try to clear it. Where is this activity when I’m trying to brainstorm? Mostly I saw images of Jedi Knights battling, having just finished watching the animated Star Wars Clone Wars series by Genndy Tartakovsky (awesomely superior to any of the last three movies). Eventually the battling subsided and the music of the river began to take over. But I had to get back home so I cut my meditation short and got back on my feet.

Jogging back, I had an amazing long and in depth interview with Oprah Winfrey. I was on her show. I had just published a book full of my philosophical musings. It was about five years in the future.



We started off talking about “Do what’s right, at the expense of ease”. I explained to her that the right thing would be different for most people. Not in a relative, grab bag morality sense. I told her I believed that everyone, except in extraordinary cases, knew the difference between right and wrong. But it would apply differently at different times. I gave an example: exercise. I ought to exercise, you ought to exercise. But for me the right exercise might be running down to the river, whereas that might not push you enough, maybe you ought to run a marathon. In fact this opens up a liquid morality in which more is never enough. Indeed it is not the ends but the exercise itself that is important. Therefore you should never be content to continue at the same rate year after year, for then you have succumbed to the allure of ease...

We went on and on. She asked me about everything from God to meditation to employment (I was unemployed by the way, and I refused to write professionally). I told her that I used to spend a lot of time talking to God, but not much listening. I said that Jesus spent hours praying, do you think he was talking the whole time? Meditation is a way of silencing the noise and listening to God.

Everything that I told her I spoke with conviction, honestly believing everything I said. I think that was because I was actively living out every conviction I shared. Much of my uncertainty now is, no doubt, intrisically tied to my inability to live consistently.

My conversation with Oprah was one of the best I’ve had in a long time. She is a very good listener.

Funny thing, I’ve never even watched her show.


I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately. How important it is. How I’ve spent most of my life actively rejecting any real sense of it. How I’ve embraced solitude. I asked myself if this was beneficial. If this was wise. If I could, would I do things differently. No doubt much of who I am today was shaped in loneliness. But I don’t think I can answer that question. If I say “No I would change nothing,” am I not motivated as much by fear and fatalism as I am by satisfaction or optimism? And if I say “Yes I would change the past,” am I not succumbing to futile and wasteful regret?

Time is a like Tetris.
The past is each brick laid.
The future those yet to be.
And the present the brick in hand.