Man is a thinking reed

What I don't know often comes to me when I'm out walking.

It's been there all the time, a little lake far away from my thinking, semi-hidden by trees and tall reeds, slightly off the walking path in the Presidio.

Sometimes at a certain time of day--early evening or late afternoon--I stop walking and sit on one of the wooden benches beside the lake and think about how I think my own life may be eluding me. The predisposition I have of thinking of my life as something separate from me that happens all by itself, whether I want it to or not, soon follows.

(It sometimes helps me to hold my iPhone when having such thoughts, so as not to feel so alone. And taking a picture of where I am is always good therapy).

Though there's no mountain here and it isn't much of a lake, these thoughts soon pass and I'm able to sit quietly for a few minutes in the sun and watch the birds on the water, thinking that they're not thinking at all about their own lives.