“When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad, because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them.
“When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good, because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them.
“And the most important rule…often the thing you’re looking for is right in front of your nose.”
-Daryl Zero
I came across the above quote yesterday while watching the great film The Zero Effect, and was immediately struck by how closely this ties in to the law of detachment. This applies to pretty much everything, whether you’re choosing a novel to read, looking for a lover or just trying to kill time on a Sunday afternoon.
Several years ago, while walking down George St in Sydney, I found myself slip into the mood I call “All Green Lights”. (The mood is best characterized as a sense of vague, detached euphoria. When I get it, all the lights turn green.) So there I was, cruising down George St with no particular idea of where I was going and every time I reached a street corner, the pedestrian crossing light would turn green for me before I even needed to break stride. Suddenly, one of the lights failed to change so I turned right and kept walking. Two streets down, I turned right again (without knowing why) and found myself standing outside an Occult bookshop nestled between a Sci-Fi bookshop and a branch of the Theosophical Society.
The event was hardly what I’d call life changing, but it did solve the question of what to do that afternoon and that pair of bookshops became one of my regular haunts in Sydney. Moral of the story? Go with the flow and you’ll get where you’re going, even if you’re not sure of quite of where that is.
Hail Chaos! Viva Loki! Aum Wotan!
Hey Bro – nice one! Some of my most joyous spiritual journeys have been spent wandering inner Sydney in “All Green Lights” consciousness! I think that particular state is a little gem… do you think it is partly caused by living in Sydney?
Have you ever had it living in other cities? Now that I live away from Sydney it doesn’t come to me much – perhaps the ocean and the Escarpment here overwhelm the chaos matrix that so happily guides one’s feet through the streets of other places…
Yes, definitely, I still get it here.
But, I do agree Sydney is particularly well set up to induce this kind of consciousness. I don’t know if I could have learned it living anywhere else.