By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive. -Albert Schweitzer
I must confess that once, for the briefest-flicker-of-a-moment-that-was-over-before-I-knew it, I felt it. And by it, I mean the staggering presence of a creator. You heard me. The G-man. I felt it and I believed. Really.
And I should explain that I was neither high nor intoxicated when I had this feeling. I wasn't melancholy, suicidal or bristling with Baptist levels of glee. I was simply doddering around the parking garage underneath my apartment, and pondering the myriad of conveniences that pervaded my life:
- my sweet apartment
- the storage locker under my apartment that is super cheap
- the fact that we have two Zipcars in our parking garage
- the dope coffee beans I had just purchased from T.A.N.
- that I had all my limbs and mental faculties
And then I looked down at an oil slick in the filthy and poorly-ventilated space and realized how nothing was in my control. That if life was an enormous and undulating flag, gripped on all sides by a million frenetic arms, I could contribute little more than a pair of thumbs and forefingers clinging desperately to the waving sheet. And I'd watch my arms lift and fall, but feel nothing but the flag pinched between my fingertips.
The feeling evaporated in moments, but heck, I'd feel it again. The pins and needles of irrational belief is kind of intoxicating.
(It is worth mentioning that the garage is poorly-ventilated, so I might have been getting high on CO fumes.)
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