Temporary new blog address

While I am at the Paths of Service program, I will be blogging at http://peteratupaya.blogspot.com/

WTF

Leave Tomorrow for Sante Fe. Another time of loading up my car with all my worldly possessions. I have already moved enough for one lifetime, hell, for several lifetimes. So tired of this shit. Just want to find one place to settle down. But I really don't see that as happening anytime soon, if ever. I mean, part of me just wants to skip the Zen Center and keep on driving, or maybe just find an apartment someplace. But no, should submit to the discipline...Wish I had spent this summer doing something of significance. Working in Yellowstone or volunteering in SMC or just driving around the country ala Glen (where is Glen). Will say it for the last time, can't believe I spent it in Tucson...While I was here, I at least should have kept up with the CLM and done some chatting. Would have given me something to do and provided a chapter in the book. Perhaps can do that at the Zen Center!...Not sure what to make of this job in China in the fall...Not something I want to do, going back to academia, but at least it is doing something. I can always look for a job in the meantime and take it if nothing else comes up...Or, as seems more likely, I can simply travel in the interval

Howl

Watching the movie "Howl" last night. Late in the film, they show the Ginsberg character talking about a pivotal momemt in his life. From what I have read of Ginsberg, it is a true story. He is in his twenties, working in San Francisco, seeing a therapist, and he is complaining to his therapist, who asks him what he really wants to do. And Ginsberg tells him, he wants to live in a small apartment with his lover and write, and his therapist tells him, well, why don't you do it. And he does, and the rest is history. Now, it is too late for me to make that move in any meaningful way. But I can at least live out what is left of my life in my own way. The key is to having a clear answer to the question of what you want to do. I mean, in a way, this going to the Zen monastary is not something I particularly want to do. I would like to just go off somewhere by myself for three months or so. But I don't think that would be particularly healthy. So this strikes me as a much saner thing to do, something that might move the ball down the road, although in the end it might say more about a lack of faith in myself than anything.

Along this line, I am going to have to confront the possiblity of teaching next year. In a way, I am glad to have given up that ghost and don't relish returning to the classroom. I tell myself that it would give me something to do. Also, I think about how I could carry out one of my book projects while doing this task. But a year, I tell myself, no more than a year. I mean, the real goal is these three book projects in the next five years, and then seeing what happens, I guess, although if I could find an MSW program I could complete while in China, that would be incentive to stay over there for two years.