A good and dry night let me wake up ready to start the day, as if there had been no rain the day before. The lesson from the previous evening was that setting up the tent with the tarp on it was the best way to dry both.
My short daily commute to Starbucks brought me by the left side of the bridge that had halted my plan of buying shoes on the last afternoon. I saw that there was a walking space on this side of the bridge, and made a new plan for buying the shoes later that day.
Writing went slowly, as I was distracted by trying to plan out my time in Athens. So, not having much to write about from the day before, I decided to simply make the plan the subject of my post. That way I could do both at the same time.
Eventually, I got it all done. I was hungry and figured there would be some kind of relatively inexpensive place to eat near Academy Sports + Outdoors. I left and got to the other side of the road, then walked the small siding of that nearly unwalkable bridge. Arriving across from the strip mall where Academy Sports + Outdoors was, I saw a sign for "China Star Buffet" in the same place. Score!
I had very specific shoes in mind as I walked through the store. But when I saw them, my size 10's were nowhere to be found. Asking the kind department head if they might have them out back, she replied that they kept all the sizes they had under the floor displays. So, if it wasn't there, then it wasn't available unless it were to be special ordered.
I was not in the frame of mind to wait. Checking through many other brands and styles, I found a pair that were ten dollars less, but looked pretty good. I examined them very carefully, knowing full well exactly what I was looking for in a shoe: squishier heel than my boots, non-waterproofed (so my feet wouldn't sweat), firm arches, good construction (no glue showing), tough treads and a soft insole. These Skechers Athletics shoes had all of that, plus the insole had something different--memory foam. Trying them on, they felt great, but so different than I was used to that I wasn't positive they would work. Still, again, a decision had to be made.
My left heel pain had been growing in the last week to the point of being very uncomfortable. I'd often found myself tipping my foot to put weight on the sides instead of directly on the heel. Hopefully the memory foam and the softer soles of these new shoes would begin the heel-healing process. I bought them and two pairs of white short socks, then headed out to a bench by the side of the store. Removing my old boots and terribly gross socks, I wiped down my feet and then put on the new socks and shoes...
Goodbye old friends. You loved me, but sometimes love hurts.
The boots went into the shoe box and then were unceremoniously, but sentimentally, dropped into the trash can.
It felt so freeing to have less weight and better support on my feet. The fact that they did not have the ankle height of the boots was strange to get used to, making the new shoes feel a bit loose. Also, the memory foam, while soft on the balls of my feet, felt slightly awkward, as it squished up a bit between my toes. I figured I would get used to them (and I have)...
Ah, they fit like a, um...new pair of shoes.
Now it was time to celebrate with lunch. Just across the parking lot was the China Star. I walked there with a spring in my step, and a rumble in my tummy. Entering the front door, I thought I'd found the standard feedlot that is the American Asian buffet. But this place was a bit different. The servers were very nice and truly attentive; something I didn't see in the last buffet I'd been to, back in Mobile. And, the food was good too.
The prices here in Georgia (as in all the recent states to which I'd been) are fantastic. The lunch buffet was only $7.50 for all you can eat. That beats a McDonald's Chicken sandwich meal (at just over $8.00)! A soda was $1.69. Tax would be 7%. So for under $10.00 I could eat all I needed for the full 24 hours before the next meal. And, they had Wi-fi! Nutritionally, the nice thing about a buffet like this is that one does not have to eat unhealthfully. There was plenty of salad, fruit, and a great variety of sushi available--which I heavily indulged in. I also found a soup with shrimp, carrot and onion that had a strong cilantro flavor (which I adore). It was a great meal, at a great price...
The fortune cookie said...
The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.
All hail the wisdom of the cookie!
* * * * * * *
I do count my blessings. And, I have discovered that there is a blessing in every bit of trouble. Even the worst misfortunes in life can yield the greatest spiritual blessings. People who do not suffer - who are generally comfortable - for most of their lives, are the unfortunate ones.
One former friend whom I stayed with in Northern California over the last winter stood outside in the middle of his very ample estate, turned himself around with his arms up, saying, "God has seen fit to bless me with all of this."
He turned out to be a control freaking micromanager, snob and know-it-all. He talked down to everyone - including his wife - and frequently lost his temper, yelling at the people who worked for him. He was impatient, unable to remember appointments, would take calls and read texts on his phone, when people were trying to speak with him--he did this several times with me, ignoring what I was saying.
He had no idea what it was that I was up to with these projects. He said he'd read this blog, but it was obvious that he hadn't. He went out to eat three times a day, seven days a week, at nice restaurants and had plenty of disposable income to travel anywhere he wanted in the world, any time he wanted. He lived the materially comfortable life to which I've referred.
What I realized, after moving on from his mini kingdom, was that all of his comforts were in fact a crutch. The Spark intimated - wordlessly - to me that he had all the stuff he would need in this world, because he would not spiritually be able to handle struggling to survive.
In this way, his human life would leave him a deficit of experience that could never be made up for. He was self-satisfied - feeling that he deserved the advantages he had - and this made him unduly self-righteous as well. If he were to be thrown into the world of homelessness, prejudice, poverty and have to live that way, with little chance of crawling out (as I live), he literally would not be able to take it. What seemed like great blessings to him - wealth and comfort - were in fact the worst possible spiritual retardations.
A great book once proffered the following...
The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted.
This does not have to do with monetary wealth. People can be wealthy and also very spiritually advanced. But they have not made their THINGS their treasure. They, instead, have made experience and service to others their treasure in life.
When they run low on these non-material things they are motivated from within to build them up again. They have no need for being ostentatious. They already know they can buy anything they want, but that temptation is consciously submerged, in favor of the much more satisfying activity of selfless giving.
Those who crave the challenge of struggling to give (to love), without having - nor expecting to have - the resources to be materially comfortable, also have a spiritual capacity that can only be filled by service to friends, family and strangers.
The rich person and the poor person who truly know that life is for elevating those who truly need that elevation, carry the world forward. They are thankful for the ability to minister (in the non-religious sense) to those who dearly require their ministry. They consider that ability to be their greatest gift from the Universe.
The rich person and the poor person who are only thankful for what THEY themselves have, are far-behind. With their self-satisfaction comes the danger of slipping into spiritual complacency. They cannot stand the idea of losing the one thing they understand--their own comfort and security. It must take first priority on every level. They deceive themselves into thinking that if they can just be ABSOLUTELY sure that they will not lose these material "blessings" (in fact, curses), THEN they would surely give as much as they could to the less fortunate. Sadly, no amount of time, nor accumulation of things, ever brings these unwise people to the level of their own high ideals.
No wealthy person who lives only for him/herself - in the never-arriving expectation that they will eventually help others - ever leaves the playpen of spiritual immaturity while in the flesh. Their errors in reality-perception condemn them to a life of riding the shortbus of human evolution.
Similarly, the poor person who seeks only to improve his/her comfort level, and is disinterested in the welfare of his/her human brothers and sisters along the way toward that goal - even if eventually gaining much wealth - is doomed to the same playpen as the rich man who choses self-service as a life goal.
I have seen poor people receive - for them - relatively large sums of money, by either coincidence or hard work, then spend this "gain" on things that make them appear to be on the same level as those who have always lived comfortably.
With an unexpectedly high tax return, I watched a now-married and highly ignorant poor couple buy a purebred dog for $600 and an above ground swimming pool for $400--thinking that those are the things rich people might have. When their thousand dollars was spent, they were still left with a car that was about to die, bills that needed to be paid and school clothes for one of their sons that needed to be purchased.
The wife ended up mistreating the dog--once, holding it up in the air by only the collar, because she lacked the empathy and intelligence to do otherwise. The dog was also constantly infested with fleas, due to the dumpy place where they lived (which she was too lazy to clean), and the lack of money to buy medication.
In a rare and sober moment, upon seeing this behavior in his wife and the sorry state of the dog, the husband remarked to me, "We spent all that money on a dog that someone who could have actually afforded him would have given a better life." He was not far from becoming more spiritually enriched, but she was as blind as she could be. The pool was used twice during that first summer, then stored away under their mobile home to rot.
They also do things that they think "rich people" might do. They will take more than they need to eat and throw the rest away. This gives them the false feeling of being ABLE to waste--like they think rich people do. Many unspiritual and uneducated Americans consider wasting to be a civil right, since the owners of the world do that very same thing.
If you are comfortable and satisfied in that comfort, it means that you now have the responsibility to your own soul to make the lives of those around you richer., without holding your gifts to them over their heads.
Should you choose not to fulfil this responsibility, you have only yourself to blame when the all-too sudden end of life comes without the very valuable experience of giving without the expectation of receiving anything back.
In this way, I understood my own material struggles and discomforts more keenly. I was building a spiritual treasure chest of experience by wanting to live my life simply, and giving that life for my friends. What I recently wrote about negatively as choosing "death by service" a few days ago, I'd presently like to turn into a positive resolution: LIVE by Service.
I may or may not ever be able to live as comfortably as the guy with the big estate in California, but my soul is comfortable right NOW in the sanctuary of my service, and has left the playpen of indifference.
* * * * * * *
After that satisfying meal, I walked in my new shoes back by the entrance to the sleep spot, taking a picture of the real estate sign flanking it...
I tried to find the listing for this land, but was completely unsuccessful. Apparently - according to public records - these realtors buy land, subdivide and develop it. Zoned for business, no doubt a new box store of some sort will eventually reside here.
I walked past the land, because the sun had not yet set and I wanted to reward myself with a beer from the Shell station down the road to drink later. My philosophy of delayed gratification of pleasure made the pleasure of anticipating a relaxing time at my sleep spot, even more desireable than the feeling the beer was about to give me.
I bought my beer, stuffed it into Saggy the wonder pack, and by that time the sun was well-down and rush hour traffic was running at full bore (when everyone was distracted by honking, peeling out, jamming on their brakes and cutting each other off--competing to get down the same stretch of highway); the perfect time to slip into the woods.
I did slip in, found my spot and cracked the beer. I enjoyed the moment even more, because I knew that the next night I would be facing the gloom of rain. Truly, the little pleasures, done at the right moments, in reasonable amounts, and moderated by delay, can be more satisfying than having them any time you want.
After darkness really covered everything in the woods, and only the sliver of the new moon shone through the pine branches above my head, I set up the tent, then crawled inside for another restful sleep.
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