Day 1

I can't believe I'm actually doing this. Blogging. I suppose it was inevitable. Got thoughts, lots of them, lots of thoughts that won't come up in normal conversation. What to do? Publish them for the anonymous masses to peruse, displaying what McLuhan hinted at when he said that our media are really our insides turned out.

I have come to realize that I am a mutt and proudly so. I tend not to be bound by convention. I'm no longer trying to be rebellious as a rebel is often slave to the very thing from which he rebels.

I am currently immersed in the midst of a spiritual/religious phase that has been ongoing most of my life, though more intensely so since circa 1996 as at that point I committed myself to (attempting to) be a Christian. But, as with most things, it wasn't too much longer after that that I found I had issues with the group think required to belong. So I'm on the outside of the inside looking in.

If I were to trace my interest in spirituality it would probably go back to hearing of God from childhood and living the majority of my life with fear, not reverence, associated with the word, as if "God" was out to get me, to punish me for being the mischievous person I was. In hindsight I realize that my self loathing and self absorption were manifestations of a narcissism that led me to believe that God was out to get me.

Self loathing and its manifestation as, in my case, depression were and are ultimately egoistic grasps at attention, sucking life out of the universe to satisfy in insatiable inner need, a bottomless vortex, akin to arrogance, both cries for help, both self-absorption to a distorted degree. I'm not sure when it started but at some point I found myself drawn to the eastern (from my western location) religions. This was probably more out of the appearance of being exotic, the hippy-dippy kind of thing I found myself gravitating toward.

In the late 80s I began stepping out of my comfort zone, aching for opportunities to break free from the suburban cultural Wonderbread in which I had been living. I was introduced to "New Age" music which, at the time, was a far cry from the big hair bands as the approved form of rebellion in suburbia. Such artists as Jean Michael Jarre, Kitaro and the Windham Hill catalogue became staples. In hindsight, these were as white bread as the big hair bands.

Eventually, circa 1991 or so, I would find the Dao De Jing, purchasing it because it seemed exotic, mysterious, enigmatic, cool. I would carry it with me, read it on the john, never really getting it. It was during this time that my drinking got heavier and I rendered myself an alcoholic, going cold turkey, substituting various chemicals in its stead. This would lead to a break with reality (i.e. leaving a $50,000 a year job to hit the road...literally). The little DDJ accompanied me in my travels.

Sitting in a rocking chair on a balcony at a youth hostel in Idaho one evening, the sun setting, in a moment, the entire book made sense. It was truly an epiphany. I can't remember which chapter I was reading but it was as if a flood gate opened. Quite literally, in that moment, I "got" it. The book suddenly made complete sense. I would be forever changed, my struggling in the confines of duality rendered asunder.