{"id":82,"date":"2008-11-09T19:56:46","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T02:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bostonsurvivalguide.net\/wordpress\/?p=82"},"modified":"2010-04-04T23:51:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T04:51:07","slug":"carnival-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bostonsurvivalguide.net\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/carnival-ducks\/","title":{"rendered":"Carnival Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pursuit of happiness feels to me like a game in a carnival. So difficult. So random. So elusive. All those endless floating ducks circling past you, and you know that one &#8211; only one &#8211; has your dreams, your desires, your hopes, casually revealed on its bottom. So you put your money down, and pluck one up. Nope, not that one. And more money,  and again. No. And still more money, more effort, as time slips by, the hours, the days, the years. You try to concentrate, you try not to concentrate. To focus, to not focus. To clear the mind, to meditate, to approach the matter in a Zen-like, irreverent fashion. They&#8217;re not ducks, they&#8217;re grains of sand, or toy soldiers, or jellybeans. And this isn&#8217;t important, this isn&#8217;t your happiness at stake, not the purpose of your life, but a child&#8217;s fancy. Let it go, release the expectations, release the fears, release the sense of struggle, the sense of anything. But in trying not to try, you&#8217;re caught up in that eternal riddle.<\/p>\nshare this:  <a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bostonsurvivalguide.net%2Fwordpress&#038;t=Carnival%20Ducks&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bostonsurvivalguide.net%2Fwordpress&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Carnival%20Ducks\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:10px;margin-right:10px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: 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So difficult. So random. So elusive. All those endless floating ducks circling past you, and you know that one &#8211; only one &#8211; has your dreams, your desires, your hopes, casually revealed on its bottom. So you put your money down, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,437,12],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Carnival Ducks - musings from boston<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonsurvivalguide.net\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/carnival-ducks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Carnival Ducks - musings from boston\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The pursuit of happiness feels to me like a game in a carnival. So difficult. So random. 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