My Patch Of Green
When I was so much younger than I am today, I read a book that made such a great impression on me. It was Trevanian’s Shibumi. The central character was perhaps a bit too good to be true but when you’re young and idealistic, characters like him and John Galt one tended to put on a pedestal and worship. The strange bit that stuck with me through all the years was the patch of green he retreated to in his mind whenever he wanted to shut the world out. It was his own special watering hole, his own inner sustenance, his own special space. No-one, but no-one could enter and no-one could take it away from him. Something even more strange, it was a triangular patch of green – for me in my mind’s eye, it was a perfect equilateral triangle.
I guess why it made such an impression on me was because it hit home. That little space inside was so important to me too. And was it because of Shibumi that it was always green? I guess so. The strange thing is that Google has always been green for me as well. Was it because somehow I see it as my escape, my space, a place where I can be myself, where I can roam freely but with my identity intact….no masks, no must-dos or have-tos? Has it in some way become my window to another dimension and yet somehow also to the world within? I don’t profess to have the answers. All I know is that now, I don’t need to lie back and retreat inwards to find that special space that invigorates me. I do that too….but I also have a search engine that gets me there. It’s my second road to refreshment for the mind.