on 5 November 2003 : 15:39, Howard sez:
Yay Justin!
"Discipline" is perfect, IMO.
BTW, are you sure you mean "fungible?" Money is fungible because you can use it to buy chickens or pay debts or get a train ticket out of Tokyo. Do you mean it in that sense?
on 5 November 2003 : 15:51, Liz sez:
I have friends that go places and do things for the simple pleasure of telling others and impressing them. I, on the other hand, find great pleasure and adventure in my own backyard. Volunteering for things, showing up for my own life and participating. Also, the God of my understanding, surrounds me with people to love and laugh with, but only because I have been taught the value of appreciating what is right in front of me. Acceptance is the key.
on 5 November 2003 : 16:43, Mark sez:
Sometimes I need to travel, need to see new things just to remind myself that everything is interesting and wonderful to one person, and mundane and boring to another. It continually surprises me that people dont notice things in their own living space that i find facinating.
Ps. If while in UK you stray in the direction of south wales drop me a line.
on 5 November 2003 : 20:11, cass sez:
why do you run from your heart? why all the frenzy? your life is calling you to love. heed the voice.
travel will not soothe your true desire. you long for spirit, for soul connection, for knowledge that comes from within.
your life is calling you. let her under your skin...
on 5 November 2003 : 23:10, luke sez:
on 6 November 2003 : 00:09, Mathias sez:
on 6 November 2003 : 07:29, Don Wrege sez:
"Everybody should believe in something; I believe I'll have another drink." ~Author Unknown
I'm no philosopher but I think the harder you look for life's meaning the harder it will be to see.
Relax. Have a beer. Hell, have six. Take up golf (play a *real* game for a change).
Get well soon.
Don W.
on 6 November 2003 : 12:16, Joćo Paulo Freire Paglione sez:
Justin,
I intensely relate to what you just wrote. These past 5 years have been an exercise in all possible, all tangible, at whatever cost.
Can we be nomads and yet grow roots?
This non-profit gig I am attempting, trying to connect researchers, scientists, and artisans in Brazil through a webportal based in Mexico and funded by my 501 in Washington, D.C.
Can a virtual world really change the real world?
I will find out.
CHEERS!
on 6 November 2003 : 14:30, IdahoEv sez:
Ah, I've wanted to see that show for a long time, but it's never been in a place where I had the option. Fuller was my hero and idol, growing up. Still is, in many ways.
I missed the premier in San Diego in 2000, and San Francisco's too far of a drive.
Evan
on 7 November 2003 : 08:03, mike sez:
Justin.
You should try something new. After you recover, try going on a consistent diet and exercise program. Come roaring back healthy and strong. I think that clarity and sureness of thought often accompanies a healthy and strong physical state.
on 7 November 2003 : 08:47, Timothy Burke sez:
I sometimes say I'm a gregarious loner, a settled nomad, a disciplined itinerant. This all carries a price, and there are days where I pay it more heavily than I'd like. It makes me free to indulge passing intellectual fancies, for example, but when I want to draw down sources of support for what I do, I find that I have a fairly ephemeral profile within the more disciplined, established worlds that distribute support. Or I find when I want to move into a new area that the people already squatting there want me to pay my dues before they'll permit me to go farther, and I don't want to.
I endlessly accumulate new things I'm involved with, but I long ago hit a point where my time and energies are insufficient to my involvements, which would be true even I were disciplined, but is all the more true given that I operate in great unpredictable bursts of energy alternated with sloth and distraction. So now I owe many things to many people, and I deliver many of them poorly or fitfully. I am not doing them a favor, I think, but when I try to withdraw out of an obligation or connection, I sense the hurt of rejection on the other end and I find myself unable to break the link.
I fear the habitual, because I can see all around me that it leads to a hardening of the mental arteries. And yet I also clearly desperately need new habits: I live in a world of endless professional improvisation and I cannot possibly hope to stay forever ahead of the wave. Sooner or later I either have to get to the beach or wipeout into the coral reef. I'd rather get to the beach.
Now on the other hand, I've been struck at times as I've reread all the half-finished things that live on my computer that my interests are really rather consistent, and my intellectual evolution vastly more patterned and even predictable than I give myself credit for. Maybe that's true about how I work professionally and socially as well, or at least I hope so. Maybe this only looks like a problem from inside my own head, maybe within the larger ecosystems I inhabit, I live in a stable adaptive niche. Still, since I do have to live in my own head, that's only partially comforting.
on 7 November 2003 : 16:54, justin sez:
Tim, that was very well said. You're a bit further through personal evolution, perhaps. More firmly grounded. But similarly stimulated and unevenly paced.
It's comforting to read from other active but generalist minds! I have recently re-realized that there is fabulous shit happening every week and if I try to keep up I will die. So I've chosen health. And fabulous shit still happens, just within 50 miles of my home. So I'm not going to London, I'm going to work on regaining physical hale, as you described Mike. I've explored all sorts of other stuff, why not health? And then I can begin to sift through all the half-completed documents on my hard drive as well Tim. It seems arbitrary that anything in particular ever gets finished, if you look at all that gets started.
on 8 November 2003 : 10:42, Outlandish Josh sez:
I hear you. I often lament a lack of focus, a soul-buried unwillingness to compromise any avenue. Lately I've been finding solace in delusions of grandeur; saving the world and all that jazz. However, on your average saturday morning, when it all boils down to the local situation, fuck the world, that kind of thing tends to ring a little hollow.
But I also revel in Kerouac's formula for a life well lived: get inspired, inspire other people, lather rinse repeat. That little mantra gives me solace when I'm feeling lost.
The joy is in the action, in the guts, in the touching of others and the reaching for divinity. For me, creeping academic detachment -- no university needed -- is the end of juice. I prefer to sweat while I ponder, but then agin I'm comparatively young; might change my tune in a few more years.
You've got to make your own scene, man. Ain't nobody gonna hand you a template you like. It's not your way. Just don't turn into a food freak, man. Or if you do, don't hassle other people about it.
on 8 November 2003 : 14:29, Nick Gray sez:
I enjoyed the recently-popular motivational business success book The Power of Full Engagement. Underneath: "Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal." It changed the way I think about working, eating, and resting.
on 8 November 2003 : 20:30, Abbie sez:
Justin,
You're not going to the UK anymore?
Well, hope you have a productive time fermenting to perfection. I think we all need that down time for reflection whatever follows.
A note to the commentors: I always enjoy reading all of your comments here too. Thanks y'all!
on 9 November 2003 : 16:58, dave sez:
"Left to my own mind I've contemplated all that life is and wondered how I might be seized to lead or join."
To me, these seem to be the words of a self-important person who should feel compelled to go back and continue contemplating life.
on 12 November 2003 : 01:02, jlw sez: