inside me
2003-08-17 || 11:22 a.m.

And I was thinking about the peace of Buddhism. Specifically about the peaceful symbolism of prayer wheels moving in the wind. And I thought how beautiful it would be to be somewhere natural and quiet and to feel that the world is real and I have a real, valued place in it too. And then I thought about sitting in St Anselms and how, even when I was a child, I always felt a quiet, a calm and a beauty there. And although I believe these things come from within rather than without, I do think that it helps to have something from without to aid that within. If that makes any sense. But of course although my rational self knows these things, I have no quiet, no peace, no calm, no value inside me. All I have is turmoil and fear mixed up with a strange emptiness. And the things I truly love; things like music, books, history, art, I have no right to love these things because my strange emptiness may contaminate them