Blind as a Mouse

So here I am in Bend, trying to get settled down.
Yes, I am in Bend. I LIVE in Bend.

Surprised? Yeah, me, too.

But trust me -- it's for the better. I CHOSE to be uncomfortable. I CHOSE to make myself learn new things by force. I CHOSE to go out of my way to improve.

No, nothing noble or even remotely cool.
This is just what needs to be done. So I'm doing it.

Though, I am in such different waters right now, it's not even funny.
It's true that I'm making friends, it's true that I'm getting settled in -- and I can't ask for better people to be around me.

But, boy, do I feel lonely. I have only been here for three days, and everyday and every moment is a struggle to find my own footing. Reminds me a lot of the time I spent in Hong Kong, when I wasn't sure of what would become of me.

I hate this feeling of leaving my life up to chance or the Unknown, even though that's the only way to go.

My mind desperately seeks ways to control, and yet I have a hard time controlling my mind.

There are those that feel "forgetting the self" is the way to go ... let go of the uselessness of self-importance (Carlos Castaneda). Be unknown to others, be invisible.

But that might only apply to when someone wasn't so invisible to begin with, and he/she deicides to evaporate away.

When you are in a place where you are invisible to begin with, you will want to find a place in the group to help you verify your existence, to anchor your stay THERE (wherever it is), and to make the connections needed to be a human being.

That's what I'm trying to do right now, and it is hard.
All I'm relying on is faith ... faith in that everything will work out, that I will be happy.
... I am here to be brave.

I suppose bravery always has a sense of blind faith in there.
But in the end, (at least I hope) we will all come to appreciate the kind of blind faith we have as a token of respect to the things we don't understand, the things that are at work behind the scenes.