An old girlfriend of mine said she knew our relationship would never last once she saw my obsession with understanding things instead of chilling out and accepting things or, as she put it — “surrendering to the emptiness of life.”

I am constantly torn between the heros of the east — who are heros for their ability to see things as they really are — and the heros of the west — who are heros for their ability to see things that are not but that should be, and then to build them. One is mainly about accepting, the other is mainly about rejecting and creating. Being from the U.S., it is natural for me to have the second kind of heros, even as I see the wisdom of the first. But whenever I try to behave like an eastern hero, it always feels like posing, wasting time, or giving up.

Maybe giving up the struggle and learning to float along is the only wise thing. But at my age I can’t quite accept that, because I am too busy picking up coins and staring into the clouds to see what I can make of them.