This morning’s episode of “That Confounding Novel” has been preempted by a Friday write. Freedom variety.

I awoke at three-blah in the morning, to the nagging of a full bladder and the devilish laughter of a migraine. And something else: words that have been echoed in various sequences and languages by generations of philosophers and disciples: The secret to life is to die before you die.

When you get to the middle part of life, you can see it coming. I was reminded of this earlier, when after an hour of denial, I finally yielded to the whining bladder and devilish migraine, and I rose. All the familiar pops, all the troubling aches in my lower parts.

This is how you see it coming.

“Small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to Life,” says the Teacher. It was true when he spoke it, perhaps truer now, in a time when our landscape pulses with advertisements for a road that need not be advertised. After all, it is the Wide Road!––its gateway all lit up like Vegas, like Broadway, like Christmas. It’s the obvious choice for any sane human. Only a fool would enter the rickety little gate off to the side, which is so poorly lit you can’t be sure it’s even there.

I’ve heard about the narrow road since I was a little child. Only recently have I learned to see it. For the first time, I understand why so few people walk the narrow road. It’s because there is only room for you. No luggage. No wallet, no keys, no phone. Nothing to distract you from the discovery of the true you.