Once in a while you find yourself at a little lake with a couple of hours to kill. And while you slowly contemplate the possibilities---should you skip stones, go for a walk, lie down in the sun---you see a rowboat tied up to small dock. I prefer to imagine the rowboat as smallish, big enough for two people at most, old, with peeling red paint and wooden oars. Perhaps there is a name on its side in in faded gold lettering but from this angle of my imagination I can't see what it is.
So you decide to take the little boat up on its invitation. You idly splash around the lake for a bit and the times passes by pleasantly. After a while you think that you had better start heading back, but just as you have that thought, you suddenly see a little outlet where the water from the lake seems to flow away into a little stream. You row closer and you look down the river but it disappears around a bend and you can't see very far down it.
Then you deliberate with yourself. Should you investigate further? Soon it will be time to go home. If you spend the time to find out, will it be worth it? Perhaps around the bend the river turns into a murky morass.
But something urges you on and you decide to row down it, just a little bit, just to see what lies around the bend. And so you go, and, oh, happy day, you find that it's a perfect kind of river. Not too slow, not too fast. A gentle current where you want to look at the river stones and faster when you've had enough of that. It leads you past the most interesting little alcoves and trees and rocks and makes you forget completely about everything but the moment.
A good piece of writing is like a little river. It can transport you to places that you don't normally go.
Anyway, the following essay was just such a piece of writing. It took me on a delightful journey and fulfilled completely my wish for a little relaxation and adventure.
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**********************Marking The Self**************
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