No crickets tonight... just quiet. You find yourself at times completely out of control of your life. We all like to claim to be in control, captain of our ship (if you will.) And, for the most part, that illusion holds true. The choices we make day to day give us the feeling and the feedback as if we are in control. Lest we not forget however that it is just an illusion... little more than a child's fantasy. As soon as we begin to establish a life outside ourselves we cede control to those around. Happiness, fortune, career, love, luck are, by in large, the result of the circle that we create. That is the great irony that for as much as we would love to cling onto control of our lives, it is also us that give that control away.

Once people begin to realize this they will do all sorts of things to regain the illusion. Many bury themselves in work thinking that with sufficient time and commitment they can at least control that one aspect of their lives. What they end up finding out however is that one aspect has ties into everything else and the connections are untenable and unpredictable. It is the interwoveness of out lives that makes control impossible. Just as a butterfly flap can influence a hurricane so is that the smallest of action anywhere in the web of our lives has ramifications elsewhere.

I think it is the great complexity and our inability to understand it that drives people to all sort of "solutions" and "remedies." Some of these can be harmful grabs for control, drugs, alcohol, smoking, chocolate Sundays. The act of the vise, for lack of a better word, it a grab for even a moments assurance of control. At the other end of the spectrum, some people turn to religion in all it's various forms. The belief in a Divine plan is at least more comforting that the UN-understandable conflux of events. In the belief alone they can find peace in an order than they cannot understand (in some ways I envy people of faith.)

As for me, I don't believe in a Divine plan (or at least not in a way that I can take any comfort in the potential outcomes.) I also am acutely aware that my life is out of my control. On this night in particular, a good portion of my fate is being decided for me some great distance away. I am here in silence awaiting.... waiting. So I move on and control the little tasks that I can and hope, like the wings of a butterfly, the through some path unknown to me, influence is being employed in my favor.

"Hope...." now that may be a corner that I can control.