This, like every moment, is one of choice that will in part determine those that follow... So in what way is this moment determined by those just past? They determined me to come here this evening and to get away from indoor thoughts of dissatisfaction with circumstance and prospect... and now i'm here (outdoors, on the heath) i'm aware of earlier resolves to enjoy each moment, whatever happens... and now i remember the eclipse of the sun when the tree above this seat* became a thousand pinhole cameras.

I look up and see a man disappear behind a tree-trunk and (perhaps amazingly) he reappears on the other side of it! That the man, the tree, everything, continue on their predictable courses is surely the miracle of miracles! And that the illusion (formed in our eyes and in our nervous systems) is apparently so stable, so predictable, it's unbelievable!

But why, i ask myself, is everything natural apparently more pleasant than things artificial (except for art music literature etc.)... What a good question... The sky, the trees, the hay, why are these more pleasing (at least to me) than is that smog in the distance...?

'But no, no' i think 'that is wrong ... the smog is harmful to me but it is also beautiful, and the man walking past with a tame dog, this seat, the moment when the tree became a camera... all these things and moments are such a mixture of nature and artifice as to make nonsense of the question...'

But what was the question?... these thoughts are over-flowing the syntax... i relapse into enjoying the moment, natural or contrived, explicable or not...

At the station: i realised, as i walked back here, that in these little writings i'm probably as close to 'the secret of the universe' as in anything!... and this is the way to continue, valuing and enjoying each moment, whatever it is, and especially if out of doors, on the heath or in the streets, in any public place...

But there is also the writing of theory, and of fantasy... but i guess that these too are in some way present in these little writings.

(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)

atlas

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