I have a strange plan.
It is probably not unusual for people to have a plan for their lives. At this point I'm only guessing, but it is likely such plans have certain ideas and goals of the sort "marry by age X," or "have a Y dollars by age 45." My plan also has goals in great detail, and a rigid timeline. But what is unusual is how little my plan has to do with what I'd like for my life. The objectives do not begin "I want to..." but rather "This must be..."
I can come up with an "I want to" plan. It would go something like "Get married, produce some children, have a family, make enough money to support them, purchase a boat, retire and die." Of course, at this plan I so far am a colossal failure, but that is not unusual for our plans. They do go awry and that is an accepted part of the process; we fail.
What is alarming about my plan,
The Plan, is how I have managed to follow it down to the very letter, even while not trying. Though at the first opportunity I would gladly chuck The Plan and go off to do my own thing it doggedly pursues me. I have no choice but complete each item, right on schedule. I first sensed the shape of The Plan ten years ago, gave voice to it seven, and promptly forgot about it until recently, when I slapped my face and said, "My God! Look how I follow, still. How deterministic of it."
It is almost enough to make one suspect The Plan did not come into being but exists eternally; that I did not create The Plan but stumbled upon it lying fully formed in the woods. Far from being a list of human goals you wonder if it is a description of Destiny; the future to come, transcribed in my head.
One fears such a Plan, awful and unreasonable. Nothing will get in its way, nothing will stop it, The Plan will coldly proceed along its immutable course, with no compassion or tolerance for anything in the path. Not even for me and
my desires. When I am relaxed, when my mind is empty and vacant with happiness, then the thought stirs. "I
have to stick to The Plan." It comes from out of nowhere, and I struggle on.
With this vaguest of explanations, I enter Phase II. I have to stick to The Plan.
Author's Note: The practical implications of "Phase II" is a temporary internet sabbatical for the next few months.
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