The puzzle is coming together magically...

These images are popping off the screen with my new camera. A little bit of timing and grace and a lot of technology.

Life continues to amaze me here in Taipei. My mother is coming to visit in two weeks which will be her first trip in many years to Asia, She is 74 and has expressed a wish to go on the back of my powerful scooter up the side of the local mountain..and I will carefully oblige. I anticipate her having a great time as long as I do my tour guide job and live with a little compassion.

After all the self help books that never really took me anywhere wonderful, I have come to the realization that nobody out there really knows anything. Nobody knows why we are rotating in space at 1000 miles an hour for absolutely no apparent reason. All the so called experts on meditation and reincarnation actually admit that they have spent many years trying to quiet their minds but haven't really attained it except in spurts. All the so called reasons as to why we are going to come back in a different form by way of Karma or go to heaven and live there like kings etc..all these ideas are pure conjecture and have not basis in fact.

What am I rambling about? We have to find a beautiful distraction or two or three and find a way to live with ourselves in harmony while we are here. This whole journey for us and for everybody throughout history maybe absolutely meaningless. Obviously I agree with the idea of  right action and not actually causing anybody harm while I am here.

However, in the context of finding meaning ...I am very glad to be doing something about it from Taipei, such an unbelievable life journey I am on here. Teaching these kids can be really great some days and the pure independence of this adventure is really the theme for me. I have maybe a good 10 years left of solid work years here and I can go in so many directions from there. Photographs have been a really fun thing. Helps me to not dwell on things like my Defibrillator and my heart issues or my constant battle ( now almost 7 years of Sobriety) with abstinence.

Let me pull a few more pieces of the puzzle together and a few more creative projects and personal relationships and we will have real liftoff of a life that I can actual be proud of after so many years of ..well...shame and sorrow.

Rick