inside and out

life is a balance between two inputs. There's an outside source, and an inside source. Our lives are constantly pulled between the two. Something happens in the outside environment, and we react. Or something internal happens, and we react.

There's a running conversation inside my own body and mind, endless talk about what I want, and what I shoud do, and what would be the best, and wouldn't it be fun, and I need, and I feel. And then there's the constant show of look over there, see what he's doing, watch out, here they come. The sun comes up. The car goes by. I hear a voice. I read the newspaper (Gonzalez, Pace, Global Warming, a study about laughter, a new TV show from Andy Richter). And then I think my own thoughts (coffee, car, gym, errands, job, husband). And all this gets jumbled together and then I go ahead and do the next thing in my life. Then my situation is slightly different, and I'm ready for a whole new set of data to come at me from outside and well up from inside.

It's a mad rush. All I can do is hang on. Sometimes very little feels directed from my own self. How much do we control our own world and how much are we just swept along, perhaps snatching at attractive moments as the current flings them past us close enough to grab, but mostly, just following the stream?

I don't choose the rest of the world. But so much of life is a response to the rest of the world. How different I would be if everyone else had made different choices.