Mr. Deprado,

Why didn’t we learn about psychology when we were in eighth grade? I mean… would it have hurt for us to know much of our adult lives would be spent looking over our shoulders and back into those very young days trying to simply understand how we became who we are now? If we had only known how important our actions were we might have stood a chance, we might have been "productive citizens," we might have actually spent all that free time reading or studying computers, or practicing pick-up lines, or working out and practicing our sport, or stuck with ballroom dancing class—we might have stayed with our piano lessons voluntarily, or listened to tutors or counselors when they told us they had our best interests in mind, because despite their iron fists, most of them did. We might have been able to prepare ourselves for what was ahead, things like jobs, girlfriends, wives, and every other quiet stream that eventually exploded into a river raging along the map of our lives until our adventures appear like the Nile Delta, but instead we skateboarded, skipped school, only listened in the classes we liked, watched TV, and played every type of war game possible in the hills above our houses.

This isn’t regret mind you, it is just the realization of how right now, right here, I am missing something, something that I can’t quite put my finger on, but something I know will help me even later in life—and even though this wisdom is so obvious, and that I ought to go out and buy some kind of self-help-self actualization—realization—dedication—spiritualization--book, the stronger feeling remains that hey, I am fine, and that the right now is just way more important than the future ever will be. It’s like a little force field of sheer will that won’t allow me to move outside of it; a little bubble of compressed air so warm and cuddly and just perfect that all my common sense about future preparedness slips away from me. Sometimes I think I know why I don’t want to leave my bubble of protection. I am scared because I know that no matter how hard I try, or work, or play, or love, or fight, I will never, on my own power, ever get it—my life that is—exactly right. The venturing out is tiresome and challenging, and the more I try and do, the more adventures I have, and the more hardships I face! —Even when I peer cleverly from inside my own bubble—I get a lingering sense of the big picture of it all—we are all heading somewhere, doing something, and that we better get our acts together in whatever way we can, and that we better get right with God or with our families, or girlfriends or parents, and we better… you get the idea.

Still, nothing pleases me more than just claiming innocence and living in just that moment—I don’t mean the extreme, bungee jumping, skydiving, kiss one hundred girls, travel the world, kind of live in the moment--I mean if we actually stop and think about what we SHOULD be doing right now, what would that be? Play, work-out, sleep, write, whatever, but if you add to that the distinct notion that just maybe you should also be practicing, rehearsing investing, pontificating for your future well-being—that’s a whole other story—and I am not just referring to retirement money. We all know that if we buy mutual funds and we "stay in for the long haul" we can make a lot of money by investing solidly—no. What I mean is that very raw, very basic sense, of—what if I had just stayed with it…

The other day my favorite person and I were walking and beneath that warm December, San Diego sun, we talked about the things we want to do—play guitar, cook, dance, write, etc. But there is this magnetic center in me—this weeble like device, which keeps me from wobbling to far from the very safe-- the very visible--right now. I think—hey why play guitar, it’s not my thing, really, and I will never be good enough, and there is so much to learn I will never get it right. I should just leave it to someone else. I say this even though it is a mirror into the same argument, that happened when I was in eighth grade taking guitar lessons at Fort Mason in San Francisco—I would zip my electric guitar up in my back pack, the neck sticking out like some medieval minstrel, and ride my bike along Crissy field. But it just never snagged me like it should have, and other interests took over during the week. Times I should have been practicing I would end up riding my bike, or watching TV with Abra and Megan (just so I could be around them), and by the time I had another guitar lesson, I hadn’t practiced, and I could only play the opening to The Cars, "Just What I Needed" and this was after a month, and so obviously I hadn’t been practicing, and I never would, and it’s so hard, so why continue, so I stopped.

The good news is, this is not regret, only the result of choices that I really have very little control of. In fact, I knew at that moment it was so much easier and made so much more sense to walk the long way home from the bus stop and circle the block twenty times in front of Emily’s house, as if I had just gotten off the bus, hoping I would "bump" into her "accidentally"—instead of practicing guitar. It doesn’t end.

So Mr. D, here is a theory: It is this—transdimensional tunnel of ˇnow and coming up and what was before,’ that we can’t quite find our way through. No wonder—we are looking for a straight line that we move forward along like being lost in a forest and finding the stream you think will bring you out, but there is no such thing because it always ends up going back to when we were young and a choice we did or didn’t make. The more you see a therapist or read about psychology or talk to your friends or your pastor, or rabbi, or "spiritual advisor," have your palm read (not bugs bunny style) or your tarot cards read, it will all come down to some point in your past, probably as a kid, when you did or did not make this descion toShare your Gigue action figures with your friends.

Befriend the kid who was too big to sit in the desk.

Stand up to a bully who was drooling over the obvious triumph over a kid like Kenny Sperber whose arms were spaghetti noodles, and who was too scared to ask for help.

Not steal the toy car even though all of your friends are waiting outside the Wal-Mart for you to emerge with the bootie.

Went out to the dance even though your parents told you you were too young.

Stop when finally, she said…no.

When you acted instead of just sitting back.

Heard the girl you had a crush on call you by name, and you felt the letters walk over you, melt through your skin, squeeze your heart, maybe plug your nose, give you that feeling like when you look down from the chairlift thinking, "what if I just jumped!"

The other day I heard a news flash that nowadays it’s the "hip" thing to have a therapist, that uncovering all of these notions of remembrance will save us—and it probably will, or it will at least point out how future and past and right now all merge together simultaneously, shaping our realities-- and the therapists--like a hot iron with a couple of advanced degrees will smooth out all this, make it linear, so that maybe we can recognize when we first stepped into that protective bubble--why we can’t see past the transparent epidermal layer—that this layer is not opaque, but merely fogged up by our exasperation—we might learn how to go on like this--we might see that there is something true just waiting on the outside of the bubble, and there are greater adventures than we ever could have imagined.

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