This is your “normal” conversation between travellers:

“Hello, where are you from? How long have you been travelling? Where have you been? Did you like Australia? Have you done the bungy?”

And then they meet me.

“Hello, how do you feel about life? Have you had any near death experiences recently? Do you believe in God? Synchronicity? Death? Do you see energy? Have you managed to detach from your thoughts?”
“Aren't you going to ask me how long I've been travelling or if I've done the bungy?”
“Do I look like I care?”

And you think I'm joking, but I like meeting people, you know, the real person behind the person and I'm just not interested in all that gloss any more. I've seen too much for that, and in fact I never really was.

So when the Pulsewagon broke down, whilst chatting to another angler atop of Benmore Dam, I figured here's a guy I'm supposed to meet.

In fact this is why I'm doing this: I believe in coincidences and it's only through being completely unattached do I get to follow them through. Which is why I never make plans, in spite of anything I say. It's also why I went to Denmark last year for example, and Lapland, and why I'm about to head off to Gore. And it's why I'm not in the slightest bit worried about anything that ever happens; I believe that everything happens for a reason.

This could end up being a heavy newsletter, but I don't think it will be. I say that now however, to prepare you – you know – just in case. I've started this twice already, and both times I've come out with the same theme. Here's the start of the first one:

Never do the same thing twice, or once even

Writing is a fascinating thing, and I'm coming in from a slightly different angle here, because there is something I want to say, and I want to say it directly, which means that I have to flip over my usual perspective, but if you read pretty much anything that's written, you can tell how the writer feels about himself and therefore life itself, through not what he's said exactly, but rather how he's said it.

See? You can already see where this one's going.

And in my opinion that's the more important message. That message is about life and feelings. The other stuff, the stuff that is being written about, is always superficial. It may or may not be about a path, but it's sure as hell about the surface world. Sure we can tell you how to catch more fish, and undoubtedly we do, but what we're also doing is letting you into our personal space. And whether we like it or not.

Pretty good that bit, see how I almost managed to bring it back to fishing there for a second – hell, you'd almost think this was a flyfishing site.

Some writers don't give you this message and that also tells you something about them too. Of course it could be all very egotistical, this writing business, and undoubtedly in some cases it is, but if the writer puts everyone on the same level, and everyone is on the same level, then it's not. I suppose it depends on what drives you. Most of the writing I read in magazines is driven by egos and it doesn't give you a message. The only message I get is “yeah, I'm this good”, which tells me everything I need to know.

You'd think they'd see it, wouldn't you?

If you don't see life like that, then get there, because not only is that how writing works, but it's also how life works. Blunt, I know, but if you don't see that then you're missing out.

So, you can read between the lines and see the writer's soul. Pretty frightening for the writer, huh? But what if someone could just *look* straight at you and see your soul – what then? Can you handle that?

I believe that everything happens for a reason. Chance events are not merely chance events or hapless coincidences; but they are meant to happen, and have happened for you. This site has been built on synchronicity, and if I need proof as to whether or not that is true, then all I have to do is look through the site and how it's come about.

“I takes flies for the buzz, man”

I'm leading up to something – hang in there.

“Especially Deano's, erm, I mean Jim's”

And the reason I have let go of everything, including this site incidentally, is because I can only get there if I'm completely free. I have almost no property, and what I have has no personal attachments, I have no mortgage, linear job, restrictive relationship – basically I have nothing. Which is freedom.

“Hit it to me Dean-bro, erm, I mean Jim-dude”

And so two different starts for one newsletter.

Following last week's newsletter, Deano says he wants a public retraction, although everything happens for a reason he says that he never hooks fish that small, it wasn't one of his flies, and must have been one of Jim's.

Once you've figured out that everything happens for a reason then you're half way there. But this alone is not enough, because you're still attached to the outcome. You have to detach from your thoughts, and by this I mean quite literally the process of thinking and not the thoughts themselves.

But he's lying.

If you're attached to your thoughts then you are attached to events and outcomes. That's not freedom. Freedom is the ability to choose your thoughts and which ones you go along with and therefore how you feel.

Probably.

In order to get to that point I think you have to completely destroy yourself to see what's left – not very much.

Anyway it doesn't matter, everyone knows Deano can't tie knots properly.

Anyway, I just thought I'd write that, because that's what last week was all about for me, trying to work out why some people have a negative take on their lives when life itself is so overwhelmingly amazing. The hardest thing of all is seeing how they could get there, but them not seeing it at all. I suppose some people will never get there and I find that very sad. I know it's their right to choose to be unhappy, but why choose that? And it's only because they're stuck in an illusion that they feel that way. I feel like grabbing them and shaking them, shouting, “Wake up! You're in heaven! Open your eyes! You've got to believe you deserve it! Now get there!”

And sometimes I do, so if you don't get a newsletter next week, it's because I've been locked up :-)

And he drinks too much.

A couple of days ago I met an English girl, from Romford of all places. She was in one of my campsites – I have a few special places I return to from time to time – and she was there with an Israeli guy, which was very interesting since he saw all of the above (except that he didn't know what flyfishing was), and she didn't. In fact, I'm about to say something quite shocking: I just couldn't live in England any more. It can be such a negative place, every time I return I get this feeling of surrounding depression, which I just don't want to feel. “Wake up! You're in heaven! Open your eyes! Look at the flowers and the stars and tell me that it's not true!”

And on Thursday he almost managed to set fire to himself whilst drinking Sambuca.

Anyway as well as being completely depressed about the stars she also had a mortgage. She's 26 for Christ's sake (and had a hang up about it, even before talking to me). “How do you feel about life?” “Well it's OK”, she said and she said it in a way that made you realise that it wasn't. I was a bit alarmed about the mortgage bit, and she must have realised that too, but apparently it's a “good thing”. She's not happy right now, that is true, but at some indeterminable point in the future she'll be happy, she says.

“No one told me it was on fire. 10-3”

Hey, I don't know about you, but I live in an ever present now, that's a fact of life. All I can be in control over is my happiness right now, this instant, not tomorrow, not next week and certainly not in 30 years time.

“Bloody stupid thing to do if you ask me”

Nothing is going to tie me down. I've been tied down before, and apart from being literally tied down ;-), it really sucks. I really don't judge people, but I see them, and see how they see life and the world. That's easy, all you have to do is really look at them. And I tell you what I think: this world of working for your future, of building sandcastles to live in, of getting married and having a routine, any routine, is not a path to happiness. I have yet to meet a married couple who I would even remotely swap lives with and have come to the conclusion that such a thing doesn't exist (of course if the history of these newsletters is anything to go by, I'll meet such a couple tomorrow – it always happens like that).

“I mean you're meant to drink the stuff, not set fire to it”

There is another world out there and the only thing that stops people going into it is fear (“Oh I couldn't do that, what if this happened? Or if that happened?”).

“There is a poster on my bathroom wall, it says be the most positive person you know”

There is only one fear and that is the fear of death, once you have mastered that you are free to experience life, and in my opinion (today's, right now), that is what this is about. Yep, thought it might get heavy; “Why can't he just write about fishing?” – well I did that on Saturday.

“It's because he never catches anything”

That's why I do this: so I can do what I want to do, when I want to do it, in everything.

“Actually it's because no one will give him a job. 10-3”

This week!

Last week saw new content every day except Tuesday, which I chose to link to the Glossary for some inexplicable reason of my own. Check the “What's New” box on the front page, if you didn't come in every day, to see what you missed!

This week I have new content all the way up to Sunday (so far). There's a review from Denmark, there's more Saltfly in the Baltic and Mike gets wet. There will be a fly. I'm about to find JanMan from The Board to see if he wants to make a movie and get wet for Friday. And on Saturday I'll be continuing the Flow series, in the river.

Basically it's going to be one exciting knock out week here at Sexyloops, the only 7 day a week flyfishing site on the planet :-))

Have a good one!
Paul