Spending the misty morning in Bojangles. I walked down here so I could finish devouring The Red Lion, a beautiful book by Szepes. It offers an alchemical perspective on the world, our material existance a crucible in which the dross of selfishness, hate, various manifestations of the seven deadlies... are burned off lifetime after lifetime (usually by appropriate turns of poetic justice)--all depicted through the eyes of a man “cursed” to carry all his memories intact from life to life.

It’s the type of story that compells self-reflection, so I gaze into the mirror of my own beliefs... I want life to be like that. I’m the idealist that wants to see even the most petty and pitiful things having their places in the grand scheme of things, every experience pregnant with meaning, a method to all the madness, and so live with patience, acceptance and love toward all living things (no matter how much stupidity they--or I--indulge in). At the same time I’m an ameliorist who can’t let sleeping dogs lie. This tendency makes me judgemental and critical (self-criticism at the forefront). On the scale of development implied in the Red Lion, I’m pretty immature. It was an enjoyable journey nonetheless.