well, these past couple of months, or really this past month in particular, has been an interesting journey. i've connected with a lot of friends. i've disconnected from some un-positive feelings. not that i never have those anymore. but things are different. my future remains uncertain in some respects. but if it didn't, would i be bored? i wouldn't like to think so. i feel like i've grown up a lot in the past month while also re-exhibiting some behaviors that in the past perhaps i viewed as immature, and now i view them more as positively human. it's interesting because in a long-term relationship in which i experienced a lot of dissatisfaction while also trying to become a more mature person in a relationship dealing with my slow progression into a career, at times i engaged in behaviors and thought processes which, as a newly single person with more space to be accountable for my actions, i now view as very immature. but then again, maybe that's not true at all. maybe i was just being myself all along and defending my needs. maybe that's not bad at all. maybe i should have moderated the presentation of my ideas (or more likely just given clint space instead of arguing), but eventually i moderated that. after it had all been said and done in many respects. but anyways, it did prepare me to live better in other relationships. and to end that one respectfully, too, i think, if that's what has just happened. it's funny because marriage is held up in society as the ultimate mature activity. it's an ongoing relationship that is given so much respect and authority. if you don't stick with this person, people are going to judge you. so actually we try to act very mature. we try to have a loving relationship with this person every day, try to have new conversations, keep it fresh, hope we don't change too much, or if we do, hope we still really like our partner. the sagest thing my dad has ever said (but really, he's said lots of them as do all of us) is that we make the biggest decisions in our lives when we're the least mature. it's funny because re-hearing that comment right now in a space where i'm not feeling very defensive, i do hear that as true. my argument all along, though, and many people would go along with this, is that we have to make our own decisions to learn and thus maybe the grown-ups who think they did everything right will call them mistakes. for us, those of us still growing, we look at our choices as part of our identity. and certainly our identity is not a mistake. but identity is interesting. we think it's ever-changing, that we're growing. growing is even interesting. i love the new age words and concepts. i don't want to be a slave to biology. that's about aging and only that. we would rather think growing. we'd rather think of ourselves as spirits going toward enlightenment. of course we prefer that to just decay and death. you could say it's all perception. you could also say it's about attitude. some people say you're gonna die and get old, and that's it. you better pick one person and stay with them because you DON'T want to die alone. isn't that interesting? when we could die at any moment? some people stay in situations where they're unhappy. or at least they think they're unhappy. maybe they're just unhappy about time. maybe they're just unhappy that they're "aging," definitely coming closer toward death. when we're young, we take account of the fun we're having. when people get older, maybe they take more account of the fun they're not having. or at least think they're not having. but they're still them. is it really that awful? that's how i felt about the law when i was in law school. like this definitely isn't going to make me happy. this does nothing for my emotions. this is all conflict. it was also all perception. i mean conflict is a part of life, but does it have to be so painful? really, being a lawyer, perhaps, is not as painful as actually trying to do a lot of living. interesting, huh? if you were a lawyer, you'd have a stable job where you had challenging projects, and people would respect you for these projects. some lawyers deal with the label "winner" or "loser." it can seem like a competitive world. in the world of spirit often times we think we want to get away from the competitive world. but does anyone ever get away from competition? we're always competing with ourselves for survival inside. the biggest question about survival really is am i happy? darwin didn't think of that i bet. who did? freud? no. hmm. interesting question for a dissertation. when did the actual friggin' QUESTION am i happy come up? we could find this out in literature. well, right away i think i could narrow it down to the 1900's or something when actually it just comes from spirituality. and i guess from the earliest creatures, too. they were like: am i fed? am i sheltered? am i loved? that was their answer to happy. but actually back to the am i loved question? wow, where did we get this idea of love anyway? i should read the bible's answers. anyways, that's what we've come to expect. another interesting question is whether love has always been experienced the same by all cultures. i mean, is it just because of adam and eve that we're monogomous? i know i'm not the first one to address these questions at all, but in my apartment alone, i'm having a fun time having this conversation with myself. which brings me to a new point. are we evolving to the point where we don't need love in the same way? i mean, we work most of the time. the place for love now exists in small pockets. actually it probably always did since we've always hunted to survive. i'm not pretending at this moment to try to engage you, so if this is going all over the place, sorry, but it's actually me i'm engaging in this moment. interesting. that conversation is about engaging ourselves, kind of almost like an intellectual masturbation. wow, conversation can really be like sex. maybe some people get off really quick and like to do it the same every time, go straight in for the kill (or release), like, honey, i can't wait until we retire. we all do this. i can't wait to go to puerto rico. what's puerto rico gonna be like? i can't wait until we see batman this weekend (bad choice as i hated that movie). let's say something more interesting like, oh, encounters at the end of the world playing at the ross soon. interestingly enough, the conversation and its masturbatory effects end up having to do with whether or not they're going where we want to go. wait, you don't want to do what i want to do. you didn't appreciate that? it wasn't good enough? i'm not good enough? do you think i'm fat? do you think i don't bring home enough money? do you think i'm fun? do you think i'm boring? would you like to have that for dinner? wow, couples are so masturbatory. i'm not saying it's all bad. i'm very familiar with the good feelings. but right now i'm feeling like what is attraction? obviously, i'm in my usual frame which is asking incessant questions trying to understand the world. if only i'd leave college. i think i'd keep asking questions. maybe i could have been an okay lawyer. i'm starting to conclude that. i'm starting to conclude that it wasn't all bad maybe (maybe?) going to be a lawyer. where i was going with that earlier had to do with well, is it really all bad? i mean it gave anxiety in law school having to learn all these things that i thought were really boring and unemotionally engaging. maybe if you knew that going into law school, it wouldn't be all bad. i noticed the people with kids in law school actually seemed the happiest. they had a reason to focus, like a huge reason, but they also had a way to have fun. i've just decided that a great way to do life is to it in this order: after college --1) do what you want. do anything you want. everything. use your money to travel, go to concerts, get drunk with your friends, be with who you want to be with, live in some nice cities, experience things, don't worry. be happy. just find work. maybe find work that you can somehow rationalize would relate to any future goal. or better yet. future goals can wait. have fun. have good conversations, though, when you can. you went to college. thinking (and i'd say writing) will really help you figure out what questions you want to ask. then 2) (if this were my life i was planning backward, and maybe it is), well, i would say keep having fun until you find a partner who you think these things about: 1) they're fun, 2) they're hot, 3) they're smart, 4) they're nice (not in any particular order, mind you), 5) i guess they have a good sense of humor, like you find things they say funny, 6) most of all, i just mean someone you're attracted to who you like to talk to, basic stuff. some people would also say check your sexual compatibility. maybe part of the package if you like to talk, and you find each other hot, 7) um, where was i going with this? well, if you can find someone you really like, you could stay with them as long as it was good (this is some sort of ideal world, not the one i lived in). 8) i don't know about marriage. that is just a protection for having babies. maybe it's a good protection. if you're going to get that "protection," though, make sure it's with someone you're going to keep liking. maybe this is really hard to know when you're young. i mean ultimately the idea is to become the coolest, happiest you, and then find someone who matches. the cool part is up in the air. but maybe figure out what you really like to do.
okay, 9). if you've had a ton of fun and found someone who you like and are attracted to, and you have fun in the same ways, you may be ready for step 10). my dad always said step 10 was law school (only actually he called it step 1). i would say step 10 could be law school if you'd had a lot of fun and found someone you really liked. well, i'm messing up a bit because actually if this were my life i were planning backwards, i'd go ahead and marry the guy and hope he had a good job. this is the part where a good job comes in. but, you could also both be in school. really, if you're going to law school, especially if you have scholarships, and it's kind of cheap for a law school, you could have student loans. i would have the kid now. maybe get the baby a little grown before law school. so maybe i'm getting ahead of myself instead of planning behind. hmm. this could still be my life i'm planning. several variables to that. but, well, can you plan a perfect life? i think that's been my question all along, and perhaps it was always way too much a question which meant that i never lived this at all because i wasn't social enough having fun because i was always trying to plan the perfect life. but it's a catch 22. i mean what does it mean to be social? to go to good concerts, get together with friends, go to the beach if you're on the coast, have wine, eat good food, exercise, work. we have so many activities. some people expect constant talking because that defines them as ultimately social. and i guess to be ultimately social we would be in the moment with positive, fun energy all the time. sounds like a lot kind of, huh? i mean i guess we could be this in-motion positive character who is constantly positively interacting about positive things from music to a project to a new clothing line to dinner. and this person makes enough money. hmm. anyways, in this conversation with my own head i digress a lot. i wish i were looking at a human face who would interrupt me. wow, this is how people live sometimes. it's like they talk and wait for someone to talk back. that's not masturbation. that's interaction. that's what we seek. but sometimes like me right now people want to talk out loud more than they want to interact. i mean i wouldn't mind someone sitting here right now and saying everything i say is brilliant. that would feel good. they might even interject or question me. does this make me a professor? one might worry they would run out of things to say, or maybe they would get so good at what they say (like a teacher, too) that they have a consistent list of responses or things to evaluate and explore. part of me worries sometimes that if i think too deeply i'll figure everything out and then i won't get to intellectually masturbate anymore. oh no. but then i'd read an article or the paper and see what's new. it's just weird because i'm newly single and know not my future and whether i'll have a partner to live with which is our protection against loneliness even though sometimes of course we'll feel lonely with them, too, and maybe even we'll feel out of touch with our feelings. i don't think i'll feel out of touch with my feelings. but maybe my feeling is that i'm afraid to. well, how would i feel if i quit having things to talk about? i think that's something people face. they have kids to feel and to watch and to feel that they're living on, maybe they'll even send their kids on adventures that they can't or don't think they can have because they're working, and so they work so they can try to watch someone have a better life than they had, so they can try to give someone a better life than they had. i guess that sounds really altruistic, and yet people get pleasure out of that because they're helping someone they love and helped to grow. i guess that's good. when they can be a good parent they feel ultimately like a really good human being because they really had to be a nice and sacrificing person to give this kid a good life. if they give the kid a good life anyway. but the more you try to accomplish this big human task of having a kid, the more your life becomes totally about other people. on the one hand having your life be about other people seems like a good thing. i mean that's not lonely, i guess. you get to eat meals together, watch tv, read stories, listen to music, dance, plant a garden, clean, cook. all the family things. they're not bad things. go to adventureland. go camping. go horseback-riding. of course all of this gets expensive. in a way it's like socializing. you spend money so you can do fun things with people. only now these people are like really yours, and you support them totally, and you try to teach them how to make good decisions and have fun in healthy ways. it's all so much. i almost feel like who in the world would decide to become a parent, and yet for many months i was trying to do this. in some ways, this can all get overwhelming. like, i'm making my life about other people. but what have these people done for me lately? wow. it can be so easy to get/feel selfish. what have i gotten to do for me lately? i will read articles about taking 10 minutes a day for yourself, for self-care. and i kind of feel like oh my god. i've gotten really used to doing everything i want to do, so long as i'm not really going into debt to do it. i try not to hurt people unless i have to save myself. that's an interesting paradox, too. wow, my chakras are really open now, and i'm really in touch with my voice. in some moments i'd call it divine energy, but then that's kind of a bullshit statement too because hitler knew how to write. was he channeling divine energy?
i guess we are all philosophers, and we're all sages. we all figure out our own answers. i, perhaps, like too much to verbalize this process. but it's so fun. and when i do it like this, i feel at the end, like where i'm getting now because i'm finally running out of breath if you can believe it (maybe that's the problem; yoga helps me breathe TOO much so i kind of can really keep going with my internal dialogue. yes, if only i could channel this into a novel. actually, that was supposed to be the point of this summer. i have books on writing and novel writing and things, and i finally wanted to read them and get started but then i started this blog and have gotten caught up in my internal dialogue masturbation and what it's then brought into my life, and while my writing is fragmented in terms of my thoughts/topics going all around, i do feel like i've learned some ...
wow, that was a really long conversation i had with myself. it was happily interrupted by an even longer conversation with my friend liz, liz from college, not yoga. that was great. wow. i love talking to my friends. i feel like i learn so much about myself. liz said my thinking about law school was like me thinking about getting a sex change. it shouldn't happen. it's not me. we arrived at some options: i'm going to go to the iowa international teacher career fair to see if i want to teach in a foreign country. and/or i'm going to apply for a phd in english in creative writing since it seems i'm good at that even though all i mainly do at this point is blog, but i'm sure i could channel myself into something more creatively coherent somehow. so those are my choices. keep subbing and taking classes until then. i'd also become a yoga guru like ana forrest, but i'm just never going to be that into it, i don't think. it takes a former dancer to get that serious, and that i'm not. so yeah. i know what i like. liz said i'd like costa rica. i've got to do life as people say. that's such a weird phrase for me. i guess i'm trying to keep grounded in myself while dipping all my various long, thin fingers into all the cookie jars i'm interested in, seeing which doors open, and which doors close and seeing what cookies (or fruit, if i'm trying to be healthy) i'm left eating. sounds fun.
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