Last week my horoscope (which I keep up with occasionally when I need some new way to frame what I am thinking; something to react against) told me that I needed to develop a new way of seeing things. And so, although the advice was vague and linked improbably to the bizarre shape of goat pupils, I am trying to do that.

One of the phrases that has really stuck in my mind from Dave’s new(ish) practice of Buddhist meditation is “It is ok this way, and it would be ok the other way too.” I may be slightly misquoting, but that’s the general idea. I like it for many reasons, not least because it implies that every possibility other than the current reality is lumped together in one “other way.” Which is of course crazy reductionist. But also kind of correct. Because there is the way things are, and there is everything else.

It has not been a great month. In fact, it has in many ways been a spectacularly bad month. But I truly believe that small moves, small choices, and even terrible realities have effects down the line that we simply cannot anticipate. So this way is ok, and the other way, it would be ok too. Because we don’t know what this way means, nor would we understand the other way any better, but we have to live in one or the other. We have to live in something.