Major Tom to Ground Control

Have you ever watched one of those nature documentaries that show some huge, ungainly bird trying to land? I don't know which birds I'm talking about. I can make some names up if it makes the story better. Arctic geese? The Falklands albatross? The blue-footed booby? These animals are so majestic in flight, traveling thousands of miles to summer in a warmer climate, flying, flying, always flying. Then they try to land. The nature film makers obviously have a bit of a mean streak so they show the landing process in slow motion: the birds come crashing in, falling on their faces . . . er, beaks or whatever . . . bouncing in before coming to a stop. Then they try to wander off nonchalantly like everything went according to plan. What are you laughing at? I meant to do that.

I feel like that most of the time. I'm flying in, I'm tired and I have to eat and I know it's time to land, but I have never really mastered the art of face-free landing. I'm always surprised when my face hits the ground, even when I know my face is going to hit the ground, like it does every time. I guess the growth is that I try to land, and that I don't just fly into the cliff at full speed or try to take out a whole bunch of my fellow Falklands boobies when I crash. "If I'm going to hit my face, I'm taking you sons-of-a-bitch with me!" That kind of thing.

I want to be in control of the process, whatever the process is. That's the First Step in code: YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF THE PROCESS. I think a good slogan for my life might be DON'T MAKE IT WORSE. My life would go better if I didn't make things more complicated. Some times I have to move forward when I don't know what the outcome is gong to be or when I see that some pain might be involved or I might be denied some pleasure that I have come to expect as my birthright.

It's scary moving forward.