My Journey To Inner Space

by Phil La Duke

“We were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion; never glimpse the truth when it’s far too late.” — George Harrison, “Within You Without You” (The Beatles)

When one is asked to write an essay on the topic of space there is the almost irresistible urge (at least for me) to discuss the subliminal meaning of two billionaires trying to thrust giant phallic symbols into the stratosphere and beyond; the ultimate showdown of mindless machismo, but that subject fell flat with me. Not that I am too mature to take cheap shots at the spectacle or even that I am politically bent one way or the other. I know people say that the money could be better spent, but as a man who literally owns more than 125 hats I’m not exactly feeding starving children with my money so I think it’s more than a little unseemly to tell other people how to spend their money.

Of course, I could have written about the isolation caused by the pandemic — the masks and a literal mandate to give people their space (at least 6 feet in fact) but then I was never crazy about some drooling Waterhead crowding me at the supermarket or anywhere else for that matter. Writing about some deep revelation I had because a bunch of mouth breathers was legally bound to keep out of my face would be disingenuous.

Then it hit me. The space I wanted to explore was my inner space. I used to work in a faith-based healthcare system that conducted “personality style inventories”…