I wonder how many people I happen to know would understand a single word if I were to tell them about the one and only remaining goal in my life: enlightenment.

Addendum I (September 18, 2010)

Well, I wonder whether I would even dare broach the subject of enlightenment as the one and only remaining goal in my life with any of the people I happen to know. With the exception of my beloved, I hasten to add. We do return to it every now and then, but mainly when I try to remind her of the proper place in my life of everything else I am doing—such as writing, painting, or partaking in local politics. Which is why we do touch upon enlightenment on occasion, albeit only briefly and, well, rather superficially. Returning to all the others, I would surely not dare mention it, as I confessed at the outset. In fact, this would not even cross my mind, no matter how fleetingly. And I sometimes wonder why this is the case. Is this an index of spiritual backwardness of the people who surround me? Or is it perhaps an index of my own spiritual progress toward the one and only remaining goal in my life?

Addendum II (September 6, 2015)

Reading this haiku, I cannot but focus on its date. It was written several months before the crisis in my engagement in local politics. At the time, I was blissfully ignorant of my upcoming legal entanglement with the former mayor of Motovun, Slobodan Vugrinec. A bit more than seven years later, the haiku strikes me as written in a previous life. And Vugrinec derailed me for true. After many years in Croatian courts, I am still waiting for the final verdict from Strasbourg, which is likely to come my way sometime next year. Although enlightenment has remained the only goal in my life throughout the ordeal, I am a different person now. Nowadays, I would not even think of broaching the subject of enlightenment with any of the people I happen to know. My beloved remains an exception, but only just. The haiku would thus not even cross my mind the last few years. It is none of anyone else’s business, to put it in American English. And I take this attitude of mine as a definite sign of my own spiritual progress, I must add with a barely visible smile.