I can lose my way any old time of the day. It might happen as I eat my breakfast porridge or drink my breakfast coffee whilst reading a newspaper or journal. There are the rich sensations and pleasures of eating; there is the impact of this or that writer’s mind. The fact remains that I was on a path, worked on by the effort to free myself from sleep, from dreams, to mobilise my physical being: to ready myself for the tasks of the day, and whoops, I’ve wandered off into some country, pleasant or unpleasant. And it’s a while before I notice because I’m held under the spell-like belief that I remain on the ‘correct’ path.
By the time I do realise the errors of my ways, it is too late to pick up the threads of the path, but rather I must attempt to adjust my route with the aim to intersect the intentions of the earlier path – if I know (or remember) what those intentions were. This is often too difficult or even impossible, so I am left to do the ‘best’ I can. A strangely unsatisfactory experience.
It’s no wonder we organise ourselves into teams with an elected or imposed leader, who, we hope, will remember the way we should be travelling. But check the news: they never do.