Where am I?

[zentao82]

I spent twenty minutes on saturday staring at an 1800 year old iron sculpture of a hindu temple. I do not think the time was wasted though I cannot think of anything I gained by spending this amount of my life looking at an old piece of metal work. It was not particularly beautiful. It did not move me in some inner way? No tears, no inspiration, no inner rush of ecstasy. Just a quiet contemplation of this statue. A few moments later I was again quietly pondering a 300 year old traveler's chest from Korea. And then a simple 900 year old clay plate from Peru. Why I was moved to ponder these things I do not know, but finding myself gazing at them seemed to come almost as a surprise when I realized what I was doing. Not that I was not affected the same way while walking through the gallery of phantasmal, acid-washed glass figures at the next museum where I almost felt a desire to touch them to determine if they or I was the real person. Or at the mall where mirrors would catch I and the friend I wandered with looking at them and not realizing I was looking at me for a few seconds before being startled by the fact. I was not high, I was not drunk, and I was not there. Of course, I am sure that the 10 people I piloted through the maze that is Birmingham traffic were glad that I was at least somewhat there (there is always some thrill to the swerving of a 15 passenger van through the masses of smaller vehicles that is traffic) but I doubt they know the extent to which I was not.
I have no idea what this all means, nor do I really care. It just was, as am I, as are you, and as is everything that is in this world. So it goes. May it all prove benevolent to you this day.