The crossroads have been met. I think of train tracks. Hop on the train, ride it through the great countryside, or walk across the tracks, wander into the bush and see the great countryside? It's tough, both are adventures, you will see many cool things either way no doubt. But one ends where I know it will end, at the station. One ends somewhere else, the 'unknown road'. All postmodern thinking to the contrary, one is objectively better than the other. For some the train and the station, for others, bushwhacking the brambles. The junction of the crossroads have proven problematic for me, many trains have passed yet I wait, scuffle my feet and make whimpers like Silus my dog when he wants but knows not whaty what, dusty, hungry and thirsty.
All romantic notions of the traveler aside. On the unknown road the highs are higher but the lows my friends are much much lower and the middle, like this country, become a thing of the past. There is heart-break, soul-doubt, and acute indigestion of the bodily everywhere on the diet of those fed on outlier experiences. Lives are lost, wasted, raised to the ground but the path forged is the only place for lives lost to be vindicated, advanced, even ascensionated . I suppose I'm doing a poor job of dissuading my lovely reader from the romance of the bushwhacker life, the trailblazer's trail. My point is merely, there are much more than thorns in a forest of bushes. It is much more difficult than rolling over tracks laid on the efforts of past whacker-renegades. It's where the outstanding rewards of life will always lay but beware my loves, the path not followed but created can be undignified in it's ruthless treatment of it's patrons.
That said, hopping on the train, seeing the sights and living 'the life' is not to be brushed aside as a thing for those who lack courage or creativity, the mundane for the mundane. For those who find it right, it is every bit as fulfilling as those who must cascade 180 foot waterfalls in a little plastic boats to get theirs. The train riders, they pay their fare and sit in seat 82a, window seat, the concessions will come around and refreshment will be served. That makes them happy, the plumage. The decision made at the crossroads despite my fictitious-black and white analogy in play here, is a choice that is lived by degrees, it is not an on off switch. BUT fundamentally speaking there is a point, and there is a line and at some point one must cross or not cross that line. And at the risk of sounding very Hollywood, there is no going back once on the other side. Crumpets in coach will no longer do the trick.
What I'm parle-ing sounds like a question of 'how' to live, but nay nay, it's a 'why' to live question that concerns us. To live to make dinner with your wife and new born child, while making sure your mortgage is paid or live to see the swell, see the wind shift, see the conditions reach epic, enter the deluge head first and push for dear life. This does not suggest that those with mortgages can't surf and those who live to surf can't have wives and children they adore. Nor that living to surf should by any stretch be considered a trailblazing modus operandi, on the contrary, it can be quite run of the mill depending on the surfer and the surfing. "I surf because it's good exercise and I live in Hawaii so..." that, in your humble's opinion, is a choice on 'how' to live. It's the same as I go to work because I need to earn money, not right nor wrong, it just is what it is, and is not the subject here. 'I live to surf, I live to catch the wave of all waves in the conditions of all conditions'(and will subsequently push the sport to it's new pinnacle), that is an answer to 'why live?'. You could then say happiness is the purpose of this made up person's life, or surfing is, they are synonyms, both would be correctamundo. 'I live to surf', I 'Surf to be alive'. Those who burn themselves in an established profession or non, would always answer the why question with what they are burning themselves for. It's their life blood, their fuel for breathing fire. They are the only one's who reach the unprecedented. What really differentiates the trainriders and the bushwackers is the question 'why'. Why live ? and Why do this with my life? No ragin' cagin' true blue trailblazer seeks for novelty's sake, or money, it's never to raise the bar just because the bar's never been that high. The motive power behind such force is rather that immaculate motive, sopping with integrity, dripping, slurping, beautiful reason of self-achievement. I built it, I did it, I made it... why dear sir or mam?' 'Why did you do that?' 'Because it makes me happy'. 'Oh how quant'
Know the answer to 'why' through and through, the 'how' follows suit.
But I have strayed, oh my, how tragically I have strayed the topic of this exposé, as I'm sure you all remember and are dying to return to, is that of 'your most humble narrator' Me. (If you've read A Clockwork Orange you'll know why I'm talking like a butthole) Oh dear 'droogies' read on, read on, the unknown road, and the choo choo trainy wainy and how your narrator propounds to surmount such a perdicky wicky is to come.
I am damaged, those like me are damaged. We are men and women who no longer see well. As a course of special gift or through experiences I am not sure but we no longer see the normal spectrum of light and dark. Nor do lines delineate things for us, it's blurred and tonal, we can no longer be guided to safety by the lines of illumination on the cockpit floor, we see explosions though. Our proverbial sight is limited to the spectrum of black holes and solar flares. Seriously, I'm even getting sick of the metaphors... No I'm not! Normalcy no longer picks our peckers up. It takes a lot more pre and post to get our rocks off basically. Thanks David Carradine, our hats are off to you sir. What's life like not on the edge of a razor? Dull I say, dull.
So your narrator stands at the crossroads. To hop on the train, learn zen master ninja techniques of calming my senses, years of slow breathing and 5:00am yoga, learn how to love and be contented with the ball bouncing? Have a beautiful calm life of equilibrium and mild laughter.
OR
Pull out the machete, tuck the pants into socks to avoid the ticks and mosquitos, eat the last two finger-widths of G.O.R.P. and dust left in my sachely sachel. Pull the hat down low, crease those age-gouges forming between my eyebrows with the scowl of determination saved especially for the fist "whack". Enter the thicket, brush, trees and beyond. It could be sweet lakes of paradise, golden sunsets and bounty for days or treacherous roads to ruin for years, the unknown road?
From here dear friends, dear acquantances, and oh my patient patient patricians, your "humble narrator" takes his step. Stepping one railroad tie, hopping the tracks, I pull back the machete feel the muscles tense, contract and whacky whack the bushy wush. Join me if you want, catch me if you can.
View of the Palazzo Pubblico and the campanile, Torre del Mangia. It was a kick ass day. The foggy, misty feel was nice, often I like that over bright blue-bird days. 
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