In sickness and in health (and in being).

I am becoming a subscriber to Bertrand Russell's idea of idleness.

Speaking of my generation, I feel that we have forgotten how to do nothing at all. This is not to be confused with sloth. This is my rant, straying on a slight tangent from Russell's advocacy for idleness to its relationship with being. My advocacy for doing nothing at all, which surely is an art.

Somewhere along our journey, some of us, have became obsessed with the absolute marriage of ideas and utility; the practice of only practical knowledge, and only as a span to some working man's definition of production. Having spilled into relationships, we forget that friendship, and even marriage itself, is not a means to an end; not merely a means of reproduction so that race is carried on. In sickness and in health is more than a simple forecast of physical condition, it is a matter of being.

We are losing touch with knowing for knowing's sake; being as a means of existence. We neglect our potential. As this philosophy of neglect spills into academia, knowledge takes second stage, and information assumes the lead. I am surrounded by students who seem to care more about a rigid definition of graded advancement than about where they are today. Creativity becomes the orphan of a so-called progress.

Watching, I find myself in a state of depression. This will continue to be a theme.

Children are the epitome of creative essence. They are the saplings of true knowledge. Their inquisitive nature and natural willingness to fail, an expression of wonder and existence. In early years, a lack of inhibition is rarely passed off as an impediment to a child's nature. Instruction does vary and at times is left to chance. Sadly, some roots only spread across the ground.

It is a rare adult who can stroke a cold, moss-covered stone for minutes upon end and then clench it in a fist as a prize, but a child will. In youth, a stick is worthy of affection. The adoration of an ant hill, worthy of a crouching stare and rust-colored knees.

The world becomes worthy of full intention, and dirty knees, a necessary ingredient.

With speech, expression becomes vocal, and the questions are asked: why and how? How do I live? Why do I sneeze? How does it work? Why do birds fly, and why can't I? Why does the sun set? Why can't I stay up? Why are you crying? Why?

At some point, we stop asking questions. Part of it is balance; contemplation before a fall. Yet often 'because' becomes good enough for the grown. Time is also an excuse, though in many cases I reflect on, unworthy.

We have pigeon-holed the world, defined it, if not by our words than by our actions. There is often more revelation in what is done than what is said. If this is true, if we cannot exist in a balance of action with still 'contemplative thought,' then sadly our self-created schedule becomes a prison; endless toil, a pathetic ball and chain.

Rather than sit in what meaning is, we create meaning to fill a void; action to make ourselves comfortable with reality.

I used to work with a man named Pete. We fought fires together, and in rare moments of solitude, sat in the dust of empty deer trails. The forest was silent, crusted with burnt wood, the aroma of smoke, and stray sunlight turning ashen crust into obsidian. When the season ended Pete disappeared to a lonely ranch somewhere in middle-of-nowhere, Idaho. The crew joked loud enough so that he could hear: teased him about being out of touch through the winter. Pete never replied. He left that autumn.

I smile just thinking about it. Pete, one of the hardest workers I have known, was okay with silence, with rest, and idleness. I imagine him out there, splitting firewood, snowshoeing the hills, white from horizon to horizon, and sitting.

Everything in balance.

Being is elusive, silence taught to be awkward. But stop and feel the air about your fingers. Listen to your own breath. This is a beginning.

"The day is real;

the sky clicks securely into place over the mountains,

locks round the islands, snaps slap on the bay.

Air fits flush on farm roofs;

it rises inside the doors of barns and rubs at yellow barn windows.

Air clicks up my hand cloven into fingers and wells in my ears' holes,

whole and entire.

I call it simplicity,

the way matter is smooth and alone."

- Annie Dillard

Anecdotes from ink.

We learn the most in retrospect, so I believe. Time is always moving. To us, it is linear. Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours. As I recline in a Tel Aviv cafe, my life ticks onward. A pendulum clicks in my mind, like the pendulum of my father's clock on the living room wall. Listen to its swing: *click click click click*.

Listen to sounds of movement--apparent to ears, too silent to find without focus. I think I hear my stubble growing, pressing through the skin. Look up. Throaty voices chatter in Hebrew. A coffee cup clinks on a platter. I hear but do I understand? I am in a tunnel, traveling, looking for focus and questioning this place. I write with ambiguity, trying to transfer the search from my mind to these black keys at fingertips.

I am in Israel.

[Monday, October 12th ---------- 1:07 AM
Tel Aviv, this is my new home. I am almost moved in,
but not quite. Two bags remain on the floor,
unzipped yet half unpacked.
I wait for nothing.
Reading what has been recommended for class,
this idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy,
is just one among many related to
positive outcomes in mediation
and conflict resolution.
Yet perhaps this is one of my favorites
for the initial capitulation;
the entry into the fray.
Attitude is everything. For many of us, we choose to make
our situation what it is. Choice.
These ideas, I have made my own
over the past year, most likely longer,
and to see them applied in a qualitative
research-based setting is encouraging.
They are basic, of course, but they still keep at heart
a central theme of humanity:
you may choose to see what is in front of you
as a blessing or a curse;
as fate or as divine influence.
Whatever the world around you supposes
is not completely cast off from legitimacy,
but for the sake of emotional fortitude
of a personal nature,
may you choose your attitude.
There is yet a common thread that runs through humanity.
I am convinced of it, and it will take
a great reckoning
for me to give up my position.
Importantly, this is not an idea that lumps
all of humanity together with blind
consideration for intrinsic and unique value,
rather this simply means that somehow
we all have the power to shut our eyes
or to open them.
More is to come if we choose to look.
I will not give up my search.
This is only the beginning.
Everyday is a beginning.
May you grab it.]

Incapable of stepping outside self, of peering through the eyes of another, I am left with no other perception but my own. Staring through the filter of personal experience I find that the past is crushing. Yet revealing. Closed as a book, yet gaping open. The past few years have been tumultuous. In some ways I feel that the very foundation of my understanding rocked to the ground. A divorce. An exploration of faith in the Far East and beyond. The completion of university, and now the beginning of a master's program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation at Tel Aviv Unversity. The cornerstone of my existence has been questioned repeatedly and if you were to ask me, just a few months ago, where I stood in this quest for belief, I would have told you that agnosticism is all I accept. I would have told you to "ask me tomorrow" (SK). But oh, how a choice to actively search rather than apathetically sit in the dust has brought me here. I might still tell you, ask me tomorrow. I might tell you to patiently wait. I am in a process of rebuilding. Structuring answers out of ambiguity. Facing the present. But first, look to the past.

[Friday October 2nd, 2009 ---------- 12:56AM
The ambiguity of development work is
sometimes crushing to me.
How do I find relevance in my attempt to relate
within Buddhist culture,
or Hindu culture,
or Muslim culture?
Those who choose to follow this career path,
this pursuit of vocation or calling,
must be comfortable with ambiguity;
comfortable with allowing and often inspiring others
to find their own answers.
This is sustainability.
For those in pursuit of Christ,
or those who believe stalwartly
in the rightness of their burning cause,
this seemingly subjective reality could create
a major crisis of faith.
But speaking for myself,
maybe I have missed
'the' fundamental truth of development.
If God is the omnipotent being
that He is described to be,
and if we are to believe our freedom of choice
is a reality,
then presenting myself as an open catalyst
for the sake of another man
existing just one more day
might be the very best that I can do.
If this is so, then perhaps
the example of Christ lives in me to an extent
more than I would readily believe.
Truth proves freedom,
but does not freedom also prove truth?
Maybe the very words,
"you choose"
are exactly what someone needs to hear
in order to send their heart
into a heavy beat,
that lifts their eyes to mine,
which in a lasting glint says to them,
"yes, freedom exists in something greater than me."]

I am in pursuit of adventure. In an indirect 'thank you' to Luke Helm, I have discovered the title of this blog.

In the 11th chapter of On the Road, Kerouac writes: "When I found him in Mill City that morning he had fallen on the beat and evil days that come to young guys in their middle twenties." In response:

[Thursday, August 27th ---------- 1:03PM
The evils days are upon me.
All happiness seems a facade;
spending money, a distraction for the moment.
There is turmoil beneath the surface.
And how much of this is a fault of my own?
How flippant the human heart is.
One instant I am rejoicing in my flight through life;
I follow my own leads,
never taking the roads below
but gliding through the sky on a path of my own.
It is unmarked and sometimes even unknown
to me for days and weeks,
or perhaps just an hour.
No matter,
my head is in the clouds and that is a good place to be,
right?
I didn't know it before,
but Kerouac has cast a shadow
of what I hope my life is becoming;
in some ways, fully cognizant of love in the flesh;
love for taste, and sound, and sight.
The sight of long legs and dark eyes
and mountaintops and lunatics
and a few other mid-twenty somethings
who intersect my life and I theirs.
We meet in random places.
A home welding shop in Missoula,
a boulder-strewn mountain slope in Idaho,
a guesthouse in Kathmandu,
a language school in Dhaka,
a wedding table in Warrenville.
The faces of my generation,
in pursuit of fulfillment.]

From a scribbled entry on the page, I search for definition. What brought me from Joliet, to Cambodia, to Nepal, has now brought me to Israel.

Sitting here in this cafe, I like to imagine Jack Kerouac, himself, across from me. Leaning forward onto the table, pressing his elbows into the wood, and curling his fingers into fists as he emphatically stares into my eyes with wide open wonder, and I into his. As he lurches forward to swap a tale with me, the night moves on in Tel Aviv.

He leans back to catch a breath. I do the same.

"How did I arrive here, in Israel of all places?" I ask him. And as time clicks onward the two of us bask in its glow. The past melts into now.

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? — it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." -- On the Road