On Priorities:
I sat and watched while they talked about money, about making money, about buying houses, about mortgages and equity. About marriage, jobs, careers, salaries. This is what life becomes for a certain class of people. It's about comfort, it's about acquisition, it's about stability.

At one point someone mentions that if you're 30 and you're still doing what you were doing when you were 20, you've got a problem. I raised my hand.

Only I don't consider it a problem. I find the issues I dealt with when I was 20 much more compelling than the issues I'm expected to deal with in my 30's. I'm not like everybody else, and I'm not going to walk down that path. The issues of existence, of reality, of god (as always, open to full and diverse interpretation), of self, of meaning, are still far more compelling than issues of a house, or a family, or marriage, or a career. But in the natural course of modern, social development, existential issues are replaced by practicalism.

Life to me is . . . I dunno, an exploration, or a movie. You can hit stop on the VCR and open up the scene we just watched for discussion. Life is strange and weird and has all sorts of twists to figure out. Life is not a house to come home to after a day of work at career, have a cup of tea and a book, a partner and a dog, a favorite TV show or a video. I'm still here because I'm meant to be here. I haven't fully learned what I'm here to learn, so I've failed to leave. Once I've accomplished that, I can go.

I sat and watched while they talked, but for the first time, instead of distancing myself, telling myself that these matters are nothing I need be concerned with, I imagined myself in their place, saying what they were saying, wanting what they want, desiring what they desired. The first noble truth is "Life is suffering". It didn't matter that I wasn't in their shoes, but it was important not to distance myself from it.

current soundtrack: Death Cab for Cutie - "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes"