None of This is True.

I started this blog a little more than 4 years ago, I suppose, to have a blog.  It seems like everybody has a blog these days.  A blog without content though, is an anemic blog indeed.  I don't suppose I really know about writing something that is open for anyone to read; I do better when I'm writing to someone that I know.

Today, though, a close friend of mine told me that I should write down my musings, and when she did, I realized that my musings might just be useful to someone else. What I write here is not the truth.  I do not claim to know "the truth", because if there is a "great truth", I do not believe it can be expressed completely in words.  I believe that everything we do touches the truth of the world, but that there are infinite expressions of that truth.  This is my expression of the world as I experience it.  In it you will find musings, thoughts, ideas, points of view, maybe even some advice.  Take it for what it is: another voice in the cosmic fugue.

My writing skills are a little bit rusty.  I've not spent much time composing on paper in several years.  I do not apologize for my writing, as commanding the words in the dance of language, especially in print, is a skill with a half-life.  Our brains seem to be programmed with the ability to downgrade skills to the lowest level necessary.  I suppose it's an efficiency practice, or maybe the paths graved on our minds are more transient than we would like to believe.  I work in a technical support call center, which in my experience doesn't nurture the scenic routes in the cognitive wilderness.  They tend, instead, to cultivate a slash-and-burn, superhighway format:

Customer called.
Since Monday, unable to connect to server.
Customer reports he did maintenance on his domain controller.
Advised to reboot the problem server.
Customer rebooted problem server.
Tested, issue resolved.

Despite my atrophied writing skills, I have resolved to soldier on, and allow my writing to develop as it will.  Read as much as you like, and forgive the potentially clumsy prose.  I hope you enjoy the journey at least as much as I do.

This last year has been a time of great transformation for me, and the last few months most of all.  My spiritual teacher passed away a little more than a year ago (more on him later), and in the past month or three, I've been re-evaluating my relationship to the secular world.  I've been looking at things that I've historically been very bad at, such as managing money, keeping my space tidy, *cough* updating my blog *cough*, and other everyday tasks, and in looking at them, identified some of my resistances and quirks.  These quirks, while not life-threatening, are life-deadening.  They get in the way.

I'm resistant to anything that I view as a "chore".  I figure this must be due to something from my childhood.  I was lazy, and I liked to play.  Chores were boring, and kept me from what I wanted to be doing.  Things that get the subconscious label, "chore", get ignored and put off until they cannot be, and usually for just a little bit longer after that.

I don't like not having money for things.  For years, when I got depressed, I would go shopping.  As a kid, I remember wandering around Wal-Mart, especially the camping section, and wishing I had the money to buy things.  Once I had money, buying things became one of my methods for stress relief.  This was doubly unfortunate, because I had, and still have, a credit card.  It's carried a balance for the past few years, largely because of this tendency to buy things when I'm stressed.  Ironically, the things I bought would eventually add to my stress, from the debt I incurred, and because...

I am a pack rat.  I hate to throw things away that might someday be useful.  Anything that still works, or could be repaired, I'm hard-pressed to dispose of it.  Electronics are the worst, but containers are bad, too.  That old Unisys server that is more useful as a side table or a boat anchor than a computer?  Yup.  Film canisters, coffee cans?  Yup.  Oh, and marbles.  I don't know why.  Maybe I lost mine somewhere along the way.  Added to the pack rat tendencies, I also hate to send things to the landfill.

In this new century, I've been making changes to the way that I relate to these aspects of my life, and as a result, I am seeing the world in a whole new way.  I will write about some of the changes I've made so far in my upcoming posts.  It is my hope that someone else who is struggling with similar issues will gain some inspiration from my adventures, and open his eyes to see his own adventure unfolding before him.