Kamisaka Sekka
All Kinds of Butterflies, Vol. 1
Publisher: Unsōdō
(February 1908)

"… might it just slip by unaware that it was ever anywhere special?"

Washington Highway 28 up and out of East Wenatchee, Washington, in the direction of Quincy, terrifies me. It’s a standard sixty-per-hour two-lane that climbs up through orchards and precipitous views, with a few passing lanes to drain off the race car drivers’ frustrations when they find themselves behind drivers like me, freely exercising their Prosperities. I feel the sensation of the highway tilting at odd angles, as if trying to shake me off one of those impressive cliffs overlooking Crescent Bar or The Gorge Amphitheater and into the Columbia River far below. I drive this road slow, continually feeling as if I’m oversteering. I accumulate a line of Speed Racers behind me who seem dissatisfied with my frantic-feeling forty-five.

I understand that for many, even vacation driving amounts to just another segment in a never-ending racecar race. Some seem to need to create competition out of nothing. Others feel genuine compulsion to drive at minimum five miles per hour over every posted speed limit, perhaps so that they can feel as though they’re finally getting away with something in their life. I feel something akin to the opposite of that compulsion, though mine, too, might fully qualify as just another compulsion. I prefer to drive just as slow as I choose. I exercise my God-given right to simply cruise when on the road. Freeways, of course, more or less goad even me into compliance. I do prove capable of maintaining the posted speed limit there, but this concession doesn’t seem to be adequate for everyone. I seem to sow dissatisfaction whatever speed I select, so I choose whatever speed I please, any speed, that is, except any that actually exceeds the posted one.

I caught myself exercising this God-given Prosperity on good old State Highway 28 yesterday, as I was shuttling the freshly released from the hospital Muse home for her recovery. A passing lane appeared, and I, of course, swerved into the slow lane so all my dissatisfied followers could leave me in their dust. I even slowed five or ten miles an hour, to make it just that much easier for them to slip by. It occurred to me then that I was spending some of my accumulated Prosperity, and that I was wealthy in ways that the fast-lane crew might never have experienced. Fine, I understand that they’re likely working under a timeline, trying hard to meet some schedule. I’m at that stage of life where I presumably don’t have nearly as much time remaining as the average fellow, yet I seem damned sanguine when spending my time. There I was, freely giving away some of my precious remaining time to those who apparently needed it more. I might arrive five or even sixty minutes later than I’d imagined, but that accounting couldn’t matter, at least not to me, not then.

I’m noticing since I started chronicling my emerging understanding of the Prosperities that I usually notice mine InPassing. I am not engaging in a search here, but in something else. Let’s call it noticing. Discovering seems to require some noticing to manifest, so I guess InPassing might be the native context within which Prosperities emerge. I’m one of those guys who always seems to have a semi riding his ass. I slow for an unsigned turn, gauging it as requiring some brakes while that high-center-of-gravity monstrosity behind me seems to speed up instead. He’s the professional, so I suspect he knows better than I ever will, but I have access to only my sensory experiences, and if I feel as though I might crash, I brake. I do not feel all that Prosperous in those minutes, but stingy with my momentum. I feel no less grateful than I imagine he feels when he takes the turn onto that other route and leaves me temporarily unthreatened.

I would prefer for my Prosperity to never threaten or inhibit anybody else’s, but the chances sometimes seem slim of that happening. I feel some distant responsibility to maintain the flow of traffic on the highway; otherwise, why would I slow down so to enable more to slip past me on the passing lanes? I feel no similar responsibility to ensure any Speed Racer maintains their sense of success. I’m much more likely to sense a sliver of genuine pride when I “accidentally” happen to slow their progress. I am not above pettiness. That road, though- State Highway 28 coming up and out of East Wenatchee- does, indeed, terrify me. The posted speed limit just feels excessive. I still struggle sometimes to freely exhibit my Prosperity. I sometimes seem to be in the way. I cannot say for sure what might happen if I just shut up and sped, spending Prosperity in some more culturally congruent way. Would I still sense my Prosperity InPassing, or might it just slip by unaware that it was ever anywhere special?

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz