Nearly two years have passed, twenty-three months to be exact, since I returned from my last bicycle adventure which turned into a motor vehicle adventure, and I am at last preparing for something new.

I like the idea of the new, of newness. I like new things, new people(s), new places, new experiences, new sensations—sights, sounds, smells, flavors, textures. Newness means also freshness. It is the opposite of old or stale. It also implies difference, but this isn’t always the case as newness is often times simply a matter of perception. Is it easy to perceive the same (or the old) as new, as fresh? No, not always, not often, but neither is it impossible. It takes some work, and it takes a quiet, at-ease mind: something too regularly out of reach I think for most people (or so they might think), especially these days with the constant stimulus of a cellphone or tablet in our hand or pocket. To find newness in the old requires that one step back from all the noise, and the more often the better, and relax,  not by reading a book or watching the telly (these are the very things we’re trying to get away from), but by simply sitting still and breathing. Maybe closing one’s eyes if that helps, and then reopening them and having a look around. Better to do this outside at a park or elsewhere in a mostly natural environment, and better still a place of solitude or near-solitude (the quiet nod of hello to another fellow finding his/her own sense of newness can obviously be included in one’s own discoveries). This doesn’t have to take a long time. Ten or fifteen minutes can be a surprisingly invigorating refresher, but I often find it easy to lose track of time and thirty minutes or more will pass easily, as though in fact it hadn’t and you were only in that moment…. But when you look at your watch….

I don’t provide myself the opportunity often enough for this. THERE IS SO MUCH IN THE WORLD SO EASILY WITHIN REACH NOW. Is there really though? I mean it’s certainly near effortless to get exposure to “so much in the world” nowadays, but how authentic is that relative to the greater sensorial experience of going out and doing, of, say, visiting the pyramids of Egypt rather than looking at a picture or video? Anyway, the whole point of this is sort of to say that I’m struggling to find the new in Annapolis, and maybe Annapolis is not for me (I’ve lived in and around it my whole life after all), or maybe I just need to get away for a while. Who knows? Are either of these ideas wrong? Certainly not. They just are. They’re ideas. The truth will be discovered in time.

Originally I thought I was to leave here a year ago. However, one’s thinking about what the future may be is frequently not how that future, then the present, now the past actually becomes. In my case, a year ago I was not in a great hurry to leave, and was quite content, and seeing things new. I also made a great discovery, that being Bitcoin and the rest of the world of blockchain technology, last August and got sucked down that rabbit hole. I believe this will pay off for me, and countless others whether they may know it or not, in a few years time (or perhaps sooner, or perhaps later). At any rate, the stars seem to be aligning (as the saying goes) for an imminent departure now. A bit later in the season than I would prefer as largely I want to be places warm and sunny, but this life is doing the way this life is doing. I’m quite content.

So, yes. This newest blog post of mine has gone on much longer than I anticipated, and in directions I didn’t quite anticipate. The key in all things is not so much to fight it, but to let it flow in the way it wants.  There is a channel already provided. One only has to direct “it” into the channel, and not try to dam the channel up or redirect the flow or whatever other silly things humans like to do to pretend they’re in control. The ideal then, really, is to be simultaneously the funnel and the thing being funneled. To make the decision and also to allow the decision to be made for you.

More updates soon!