Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Novel Excerpt

“Not every soul is tortured, you know.”
“Why? Why are some tortured and some not?”
“Well, why do you think?”
“Because they did something bad?”
“Yeah. And how else?”
“How else what?”
“How else does a soul end up tortured?”
“Romance? Like when lovers over a break-up. Or divorce?”
“Yeah. How else?”
“When someone important dies—like if a leader dies, that can torture souls.”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s it right? Love and death.”
“Nope, one more.”
“What?”
“Truth.”
“Of course, when the truth becomes the torture. But that’s what denial’s for.”
“Right, you either downshift into denial or carry on as a tortured soul.”
“Maybe the question then becomes, how tortured?”
“A lot of famous philosophers say the torture we endure is created in our own head; that there’s a chatter-box to consciousness, saying things and throwing out questions, that get us worried about stuff that may or may not be true.”
“Right.”
“And a lot of the times, even if it is true, we have no control over it anyway.”
“How do you separate that, though? How do you separate the positive thoughts from the bogus thoughts?”
“A lot of people swear by meditation.”
“Yeah.
“Have you ever tried it?”
“No.”
“Have you?”
“No, but I will one day. I keep telling myself I should.”
“How do you do it anyway?”
“You just find a quiet place, get comfortable, and focus on your breath. You focus so single-mindedly that you can’t hear the chatter-box anymore. Or barely hear it, at least. They say it takes practice, but the way into it is to just focus on your breath.”


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