This is the age of the virtual everything. I believe most people are living in their minds to the movie themes of their iPods.
There are 16 rain-saturated inches of new snow outside my house. I do not own a snow blower. I shovel. Lifting scores of shovelfuls of wet snow is real. Walking to the train or the market, which are only one mile away, in the cold and the muck to avoid using my buried car is real. Being wet to the skin with rain and exertion is real.
I focus and cherish these realities and their accompanying difficulties as part of my practice. It is the practice of being human, a small, mortal animal on a large planet in a larger Universe, subject to its actual elements and their effects.
