The Scarecrow Knows

I find that when I start writing about a subject, I'm filled with ideas and the path of the story seems quite clear. Then I start thinking about what I'm writing and I begin to understand it in a different way and the seemingly clear path is suddenly full of twists and turns. I say this because I had what I thought was a clear vision in a discussion of characterology and the masochist is now filled with twists and turns. I feel like i'm standing at the intersection and the Scarecrow hasn't yet revealed which way to go.

Part of the difficulty is that I've been reading this book about forgiveness and learning how to forgive myself for all the masochistic behaviors I've been indulging in. In that process, my focus has been shifting toward understanding the process of forgiveness and away from the details of my self-defeating beliefs. However, I believe the two lines of inner-space exploration may merge down the road, but how can one take two different roads at the same time to find where they meet? I hear Scarecrow say: Take the middle road.

Before I step down that path, here's a story I recently read illustrating the middle road (sorry, can't remember where): Mozart asked Haydn if he could play this particular piece of music. Haydn began playing and reached a point of the piece where he was supposed to play a note in the middle of the scale when one hand was far into the low notes and the other was far into the high notes. He claimed to Mozart, 'This is impossible, no one can play this!' Mozart replied, 'I can,' and proceeded to sit at the piano. When it came to the difficult center note he bent over and hit the key with his nose.

So here's to finding the center note with my nose. Jai!