Journeys and Star Gazing

I am sitting here, thinking. Like watching a movie called “My Brilliant Career,” it’s been ten years since I left my job. Faces, moments, conversations, and meetings from my work days flood my mind. It’s as if my memories are fragments of a Burroughs tale, rising like steam from a hot towel only to fade into the ether moments later.

It’s a relief to realize how my job once threatened my dreams, and in many ways, I’m still healing from that ‘brilliant career.’ A decade has passed, and I’m more at ease, no longer compelled to ‘perform.’ I’m rediscovering myself, a journey that brings hope and inspiration. I remember standing on the threshold of university, my mind a whirl of anxiety. It wasn’t just fear—it was the dread of my untainted thoughts being moulded by the rigid paths of academia. The world of ideas and the university’s mould threatened to erode my individuality, my soul. My version of Paradise Lost—that was university.

After the initial thrill, the job was worse than losing paradise. My drive for self-improvement overshadowed my fears at the start of university. My job pushed me deeper into the material world, the marketplace. Now, after all these years, I seek to reclaim the innocence I had before university. Yes, I feel like I’m on a journey back to Eden, a state of mind leading to a 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 remnants of The Job. I find joy and peace in chopping and splitting logs for our evening fire, tending the fire, going on long walks along the river bank, reading, and living more leisurely.

I look at my unfinished drafts without scolding myself for their incomplete state. I am reading and playing with ideas, with no idea where they might lead, except for the pleasure of reconnecting with my work and myself. I recognize the seemingly self-centred nature of it all, but I feel compelled to nourish the part of me that was unappreciated and overlooked by Job World. This journey of reconnection is engaging and interesting, and it’s a pleasure to rediscover my work and myself.