richness

Just took a shot of Nyquil and thought I would write down some rambles, in honor of my starting to read On The Road tonight. You know, Kerouac banged out the whole thing in three weeks on a roll of tracing paper he taped together so he wouldn't have to change sheets as he was typing (i'd heard this before and of course you're supposed to be shocked, amazed) but then i found out tonight as i was reading the introduction to the book that he revised the thing, a lot, over the course of a few years, and the final printed version contained edits from the publisher that he didn't even get to approve before the book went to print. Apparently genius does take some revision, after all.

I sat in Barnes & Noble this evening, for an hour and a half or so, intending to grade, and I did, a bit, but I spent much of the time making a list of things I know I need to do to be happy. As I wrote the list, a list I've made before, it struck me differently this time, because I saw so clearly that it's just a fact: i know what things I need to do to feel fulfilled, i know the sorts of things that bring me joy, and the list i made tonight is similar to any list i would have made in at least the last five years, i think, but the problem has always been that i haven't been able (or willing) to reorganize my life in such a way as to make those things central. Can I do it can I do it.

I wonder I worry I question whether I have a sense of self. I may, but I don't think it's very strong, if it's there. I'm such a people pleaser that I think I often mold my behavior my actions my likes to fit the people who I like oh you're my friend so i want to like what you like and i want to do what you want to do but you know what do i want to do what counts for me what do i really value. I clearly value other people or at least their affection and there's nothing wrong with that but how many times have i hung out with people just for the sake of being with people and not because i particularly felt like going to the bar or the cafe or wherever one thing i liked about living in tampa, which i was reminded of this week (i was reminded of a lot of covered over aspects of my personality this week), was that i knew a lot of people there so i could see a lot of different people which meant that i saw some people less often which meant there was always more to say. then again there were people i saw all the time with whom i didn't run out of things to say but it was different i think because our conversations weren't always about our lives and our questions and our turning points and our crises but just about well just about anything.

Are people something I collect, along the way, some to be discarded some to be held on to but who knows for how long?

I just don't give enough attention to my friends. Not that they need it, but I know I'd be happier if I gave it. I wrote a letter to a friend on the plane back from Tampa or no it was the plane to Tampa and you know how much it means to someone to get a letter, a package, in the mail? I love it when I get that, even if it's just a card a note a short letter because it's so personal and it takes time and this person likes you enough to spend that kind of time on you on nourishing the connecting you have with them they have with you.

I was in Taco Bell tonight, inside, ordering, and had to wait for ten minutes for the food and as I looked around the place I was depressed because it didn't seem like many of the people in there had very rich lives. There seems to be a deadness or a hollowness to many people but I wonder if their lives are in fact just as rich as mine might be, but we draw the richness from different sources. But I think people have lost something with a loss of religion, with the loss of a life saturated with symbols where every event means something extra because it's connected to the cosmos. A meal is not just a meal it is a ritual connecting you to an ultimate order. A life is not just a life it is part of a divine plan. Other people are not other individuals they are all part of the same or are interconnected intertwined. I don't know if there's a way to capture the richness of religion without the supernatural elements that so many people don't really believe in anymore. Many people might claim to be religious but they don't live religiously.

I want my life to be a work of art. I want to know people who view their lives in the same way. Who want their lives to mean something to reveal something of the truth.

I remember nights in the dorm where we'd stay up all night talking just talking just because we loved the conversation and because there was a gradual bonding occurring there a familiarity rising

but that doesn't happen anymore does it. There's no time. I'd be tired in the morning. We didn't care then.

What is it that really really counts in a human life? What really really counts for you? For me.

I think to myself that I should do one nice thing for a friend every day and I think yes that'd be nice even if it was something small but then it seems ridiculous that I'd have to plan something like that, that i'd have to set a quota. Shouldn't I just be doing these things? But I feel like I have to plan it like it has to fit into some schedule like I can spend 30 minutes a day on "doing a nice thing for a friend" (item 12 on the list) and 30 minutes a day on "spiritual pursuits" and 30 minutes "scanning the newspaper" and an hour "reading for fun" and an hour "blogging" and 30 minutes on my "daily record" and wow that sounds far too regimented. And yet these are all things that are important to me on some level, but why can't they just flow together, why can't they just flow naturally out of my life? Why do i feel that I have to establish them as habits? If I really wanted to read the paper blog daily record read for fun etc. then wouldn't I just do them every day because I'd be so moved? I do feel that there are bad habits obstructing me from doing these things, that I've built a dam against the natural flow of my life in the form of bad habits that keep me from focusing time and energy on things that bring me much more happiness; so if things were flowing naturally i'd be doing all of the above they wouldn't have to be habits but to get there i have to break the dam that i have spent many years building.

How do you make yourself more able to approach people semi-randomly? More willing to just talk? Do I just need to start thinking of myself as attractive, as someone that people would want to talk to them? I have never thought of myself this way...but I think attractive people are the only ones who get away with the random approach, think how thrilled you'd be if someone of the sex you fancied walked up to you and started talking to you being genuinely interested in getting to know you if you were attracted to them and how annoyed you'd be if you weren't. The unattractive person who approaches people is a crazy; the attractive person who approaches people is a magnet. I often assume that people don't want to be talked to, at least by me.

But maybe we're all just interested in the people we find attractive, physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever.

Our love turned cold
A sheet of ice
But on rainy nights
Listening to the hiss
I saw a hole
And drop my line
And catch the things
That kept us warm

-----

Sometimes when I am walking
And the wind hits me just right
My thoughts are blown to you
And not just you but the others
With whom I once wanted so
To link arms and huddle close
And fight against the wind