"Wait a minute... I think I feel something."

What began as a life of discovery, of wonder and amazement has over time evolved into me, day after day, discovering this couch.  I travel no farther than the den, plop myself in front of the television and explore all known creation.

Through the television I get to travel to foreign lands, visit with people of all persuasions and witness cultures quite different from my own.  Limited only by human imagination it is all very exciting, however, my true experience is quite void of taste, smell, feel and movement.  I am a slug.  Every hour of every day I sit here, having walked no further than the distance from my bed to the couch.  I do not climb or swim or run marathons. I see activity but never participate.  I watch adventure movies but have no adventures of my own.

This isn’t even that nice of a couch.  It is old and worn out in places that have suffered years of fidgeting and rearranging.  There are random lumps and odd indentations.  There are stray bits of things down between the cushions; things that my wandering fingers occasionally discover - like bits of Kleenex, cracker crumbs and out of date coupons from the days when I used to get a newspaper, and things that without extracting them completely shall remain a mystery.

Once I viewed this couch as if it was the Millennium Falcon and I was Harrison Ford kicking the TV into hyper drive whenever a commercial came on.  But then - with a click of the remote I am suddenly transformed to some talk show and there sits Harrison talking about his latest movie or some political movement he supports.  I see him as he is now and I see the age on his face.  He has gotten so old.

It is this kind of discovery that makes me wish I had, so many years ago, replaced my television with a 52 inch mirror.  Would I have sat here for a lifetime watching myself squirm and fidget on this non-flying couch?  Would I have really traded in my sense of taste, smell and adventure for nothing more than a remote control?

I truly have squandered my time here.  I, myself, have become the crumb beneath the cushion of life.  I am that indiscernible bit, that foreign object to be ultimately felt by the fingertips of the creator.

“Oh, here you are.  Have you been down there the whole time?”