Trying to remember the feeling why I quit my job back in San Francisco. And relating it to why I'm back at work now, in Taipei. I'm sitting in my apartment in front of a computer and there's a big animated question mark above my head.

Already I'm feeling my practice suffer. Sleeping problems are back, I had those when I was working in San Francisco. I don't think I had them in the interim. I think part of the problem is the stress to get sleep backfires.

The quality of morning sitting has declined.

Not that any of this is bad. It's just another aspect of practice. If I want an ideal setting for the ideal practice, I should have entered the monastery. The reason why I didn't was to slog it out in the outside world. This is just fine.

And then there's always the unbearable. I remember cryptically asking Sadie about the 'unbearable', and she answered like she knew what she was talking about, before realizing she didn't, but she did. But I do think her unbearable is different from mine.

My unbearable is existence. This crude existence. One of the reasons I know I'll never have children is because it's just unbearable thinking about making a life to go through this. If I can't empathize with existence, how can I impose it on another living being, even though I know another living being might think it's great, and might find me terrific as a parent?

I look at people all around me at all different stages of life, and I find it unbearable. Especially the children. I imagine what they'll go through in life, for what purpose, to end how, and it's unbearable. I project myself onto people at different ages, and it's unbearable. Especially the ages I already know about.

I look at human beings, I look at humanity, I look at what we're doing to the planet and the legacy we're leaving our children, and it's unbearable. It's not necessarily rational, I know, there's still a lot of good in the world, there's still a lot to discover, to change.

What am I missing?

I had this thought tonight at work of going to China and join a construction crew to help reconstruct the quake-stricken areas. Help build, do something positive. I'll consider it again a year from now after I feel my current commitments to the band and work are cleared. That's a cop-out, though, as I know my situation in a year can completely change, and I'll abandon the idea.