Will you live in the real or a pretend world in 2024? Choice is yours. The Silver Chair’s Queen connived to convince Pole, Scrubb, and Puddleglum that her drab, dingy dungeon was the real world. Feasts, forests, fauns, even Aslan himself were only imaginary imitations. Fortunately, the marshwiggle recognized her ruse. We may not be trapped Underworld, but even here above ground fatuous fantasies find fertile fields in the minds of many. It troubled me as a teenager that popular songs quickly devolved from decrying drugs to celebrating them: Girl, you thought you found the answer on that magic carpet ride last night. But when you wake up in the mornin’ the world still gets you uptight. Well, there’s nothin’ that you ain’t tried to fill the emptiness inside. But when you come back down, girl, you still ain’t feeling right. And don’t it seem like kicks just keep gettin’ harder to find, And all your kicks ain’t bringing you peace of mind. Before you find out it’s too late, girl, y

October 1, 2018, and it is still warm enough for ocean kayaking. I get by with a little help from my shortie wetsuit. 6:15 a.m., the surf is down, sky ablaze. Out past the breakers, east so beautiful that I paddle in that direction instead of south. Rusty mist hugs the horizon, purple clouds hover above. Yellows, peaches, pinks, and blues. I stop paddling stops 200 meters out in order to simply sit and stare. A Zen moment? Maybe. But Zen is not alone in encouraging enjoying the now. Few sounds other than waves rumbling south near Corson’s Inlet, and an occasional whitecap sloshing nearby. Wavelets slap my skiff. Sandpipers skim the surface. A thought: to share this adequately would require a picture. But I have given up trying to photograph sunrises. Like life, sunrises can’t be kept, only observed and enjoyed as they unfold. My Buddhist friends might object that trying to capture a sunrise, in an attempt to relive it later, is taṇhā , the “clinging” that contributes to life’s dukkha .