Journeys and Star Gazing

Sitting here, pondering. Like critiquing a flick, a picture called “My Brilliant Career”, it’s been ten years since I bid farewell to my job. Memories of Job World flood my mind’s eye —snapshots of faces, scenarios, encounters, discussions, and rendezvous. Rather than a linear sequence, my mind assembles it like one of Burroughs’ fragmented tales. Scenes waft up, like steam from a sun-drenched towel. They emerge from nowhere and dissipate into nothingness.

I conclude that Job World posed risks to my vibrant aspirations. In many ways, I still convalesce from the “brilliant career.” Ten years removed, I’m far more at ease, no longer driven to “perform.” Rediscovering myself. I recall the trepidation I felt before plunging headfirst into the world of degree pursuit. Fear, perhaps too potent a word, yet I feared losing my “mindful” purity. The world of ideas and the systematic conditioning into the University—the Academic Mold—threatened to erode my burgeoning individuality, my soul. Yes, my own Blakean chant of innocence and experience – own provincial rendition of Paradise Lost – that was university. Job World, after the initial thrill of meaning, surpassed losing paradise. The concerns I harbored at the onset of university became somewhat nullified by my commitment to self-improvement. My Job compelled me to plunge deeper into the material realm, the marketplace. Now, after all these years, I seek to reclaim the innocence I possessed before entering university. Yes, in many ways, I feel as if I’m embarking on a journey back to Eden, to that state of mind that hopefully leads to restored paradise.

The old Zen imagery of an enlightened mind—chop wood, carry water—and the notion of no moon, no water, subtly infiltrate my “Retired Mind,” offsetting the vestiges of The Job. I find sustenance in chopping and splitting logs for our evening fire, staining the new pine wood pergola and garden boxes with oil, tending to the fire, cooking, reading, and engaging at a more leisurely pace. I peruse my unfinished drafts without berating myself for their incomplete state. Simply reading, toying with ideas, with no inkling of where it might lead, except for the pleasure of reconnecting with my work… reconnecting with myself. I recognize the seemingly narcissistic nature of it all, but I feel compelled to nourish that part of me unappreciated and disregarded by Job World.