| You know those days when you're especially
impatient, exasperated with yourself. Days when you seem determined to let time slip
through your fingers like quicksilver. Mindless, thoughtless, feelingless days. On such days now, several years into using saltlicks, I can--a
little better-- see such days as a product of what I call "mental momentum." As
I mentioned earlier, what we're dealing with here is a lifetime of mental habit. But it's
not just a habitual way of thinking (ruts, yes?). It's also an accumulation, an
accretion of things to think about.
Each of us has our own set of ruts, some deep, some
shallow, that lead through various landscapes. Often, perhaps generally, these are
landscapes of loss, pain, regret, sorrow.
When I'm able to see this psychic situation with some
clarity, I want to shout, as if to an old stubborn mule so comfortably set in its ways,
"Whoa! We've gone far enough. Just stop. Right here." Which of course has about
as much effect as if you tried to slow a jet by holding your hand out the window.
We've all built up a good head of mental steam. Think of
each saltlick repetition as a tiny but determined, very low-key "whoa."
How do you dismantle the Great Wall of China?
One.
Stone.
At.
A.
Time.
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