shadows and r******

What is it about the 'r' word, that we as humans can't seem to bring ourselves to admit to having?
It's as if a mistaken utterance might suggest a portion of our life was lived in error. In vain, and we're left to mop up the repercussions. Who's to blame for insecurity uttering that classic two word cliche (well that, and "everybody wang chung tonight") at the end of the bar? Defiantly, on the edge of a cliff? Or maybe it's just a parachute, deployed at the moment pride has finally had its fill, puking rebellious brains out in a stranger's bathroom. Our lives are already so clogged full of stupid shit--some productively stupid, other amounting to far less so. Why are we so hasty to suggest that these stones left unturned, or swatches of paint left undried, the ultimate cause of one's undoing?
Maybe it's laziness leading us to believe this is a by-product of poor choice, or even a choice unmade. On the contrary, I'd rather think it's a manmade emotion--a manufactured fail-safe whose sole purpose is to defer that inner conflict--protecting the ego from being held responsible for any genuine fuckups along life's way.

I spent 32 months in Okayama. Acquired nearly seven full days of music, filled three Moleskines, lost 18 pounds, and took nearly 10 million photographs--5,769 of which I kept. And now it's 4:15 in the morning. I drank too much coffee after dinner, and I'm staring the results in the face. Actually, what I'm staring at is a window--outside it's raining, but all I see is black. Occasionally, a flicker of lightning in the distance. Reflected in the glass is my face, headphones covering ears, their outline illuminated only by the glow of my computer screen. I have proof. It's not hard to find.

I barely remember why I left. Barely remember why I went there in the first place. Ironically, I've been watching a lot of Lost since I got back. And for as much of a painted-into-a-corner clusterfuck the third season turned into, it still offhandedly serves to remind that life will always boil down to ebb and flow. The simplicity of X's and O's on a blank sheet of college rule. Success and failure.
And how some things, for lack of an immediately plausible greater reason, are simply meant to be. When life takes us to these islands, be they hopelessly off course, or just off a peninsula, there exists a great equalizer to all this: reason.

Or at least there goddamn better be, otherwise, not even thirteen more episodes of Evangeline Lilly would be reason enough to get me through season 4.