2DREZQ

I wrote this when I had come to a fork in the road. I decided to give up a secure job that was killing me for an uncertain future.

Three years later, things are working out very well...

The definition of a desert is quite specific. To qualify as a desert an area must recieve less than 250 mm of precipitation annually. Something like one third of the surface of the earth is desert.

There are others sorts of deserts, though. There are deserts where enough rain falls. There are deserts where it rains to often. These deserts don't show up on satallite imaging, they aren't listed in any atlas or geography text. These deserts are the almost lifeless regions where plants grow, but the human soul withers away.

How can this be? Why would anyone choose to live in such circumstances? My organic CPU overloads momentarily with potential responses to those two questions.

The key to understanding the desert is this: Its' existence is entirely subjective. When I moved here, it wasn't a desert; it was a green and beautiful oasis. It suited my needs and those of my family well at the time. What I failed to consider was that I would change. My oasis dried up. Slowly and inexorably the good retreated before the onslaught of age and creeping desperation. The isolation turned from refuge to prison. A lonely island of discontent that needs no ocean to define its' boundaries.

And so, it is time to go. I'll leave behind those who are content where they are, and doing what they are content to do. To them I bequeath an oasis.

The others? They will remain, and remain discontent. Some fear change more than they loathe the lifelessness. They fear the loss of what they have in any attempt to trade it for what might be. Such as these have my pity, for I understand that fear intimately. I wish them well.

Still others do not know, or cannot believe, that there is anything out there. They have never ventured far from the garden gate and even deride the ambitions of those who choose the road that leads straight away to the horizon. Certain in themselves they stay put, as if the world in toto were within arms reach. For them the horizon holds no allure, the road never sings to them, the wind never calls their name. They don't fear change, they ignore it. If I had any feeling for these, it would be contempt. As it is, I cannot spare the effort to feel anything at all.

My Jeep is sitting in the driveway, waiting while I pack my bags.