333.366 - 2016 project and whatever I learned from Werner Erhard

every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates

whatever I learned from Werner Erhard

let me introduce this by telling you I found my head in a real mess this evening.  late in the afternoon, I learned that I'm going back to Kaiser-Permanente on Wednesday afternoon for another procedure, this one an outpatient procedure.  it didn't hit me that way.  I damn near died twice while I was at Kaiser-Permanente last time (half of last week).  what hit me was that I could make no plans for after Wednesday afternoon.  faced with that, I didn't want to think.  I didn't want to know.  I didn't want to see.  I wanted fantasy.  I wanted killing.  I wanted out of this world.  watching "NCIS Los Angeles" is good for that.  I did.  and then, of course, "NCIS Los Angeles" was over, and I was back into that funk.  except I knew I was in a funk, and I knew I generated that funk.  dammit!  so I looked into myself, asked questions I didn't want to ask, and eventually came up with several insights.  I didn't want this helplessness.  I wanted to be in charge of my life.  oh!  I am never in charge of my life.  circumstances always are in charge.  oh!  but I choose to live as if I were in charge, as if I could plan the next week, the next month, the next quarter, the next year.  and mostly I live my life as if my plans controlled it.  and now and then, circumstances deflect my plans.  and I do what I must to get past or through those circumstances,  then once again, I choose to live as if I were in charge.  but if I am a little wiser, I know that I am choosing to live as if I were in charge, I know that, underlying that "as if", circumstances are doing what they will, and eventually they will deflect my plans again.  damn.  this is what I didn't want to know, what I didn't want to think, what I didn't want to see.  but now that I have it, it's so calming, so clarifying!  thank you, Werner.