So, after a week of trying to balance my own classwork, the classwork of my students, prepping for a fourth class on Network Security, life-in-general, and attempting to get the podcast together — I think I finally achieved success on all fronts. I have some finishing touches to put to the podcast, but the episode is ready to put out tomorrow – for the most part. Nothing that fifteen to twenty minutes of quiet and focus won’t cure. The topic? Life as a series of poetic moments.
The balancing act I’ve not had to pull off for two years of being unemployed, is something that I am having to re-learn all over again. In one way its so frustrating — finding that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish things that I want to do. On the other hand, when I look back over the course of the week – I’m amazed at what I’ve managed to accomplish. So, there’s that feeling of frustrated accomplishment. Strangely enough, its a feeling that I get whenever I sit back and re-read both my current poetry and the material I wrote years ago. I feel that moment of frustration, as I don’t seem to be able to accomplish the vision of my mind’s eye with the words I am putting down to the screen via keyboard. And yet, when I go back and re-read my older material — I manage to accomplish that mind’s eye vision. I can see what the chosen words are trying to focus my mind’s eyes on. So, in a manner of speaking — I’m accomplishing the same thing on two different stages of scale and scope. And I discover again that I am my own worst critic.
To borrow from Styx for a few moments: “…sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness. I’m a lonely sailor lost at sea. Drifting with the tide. Never quite knowing why.” This is what life feels like sometimes — moments of complete confusion, chaotic chopping at a sea that doesn’t even comprehend that I am riding its tides, and not knowing where I am going to be taken. “Never quite knowing why. Sometimes it makes no sense at all.” Yeah, I really grok Tommy Shaw’s lyrics. Not just in this song. Lots of his material — especially the songs on “Seven Deadly Zens” — really catch up the strings of my soul. But then, I find that while I sometimes feel alone on my own Path — that others have walked this way before, others will walk it in the future, and there are even some currently walking it now. While my path is a purposefully chosen solitairy direction…that doesn’t mean I’m out here completely alone. So, there’s some comfort in all of that too.
There is a tendency on my part to completely engulf myself in one task – pushing everything out to the edge of my circle of awareness. Much like a candle casts a circle of light in the dark to a certain distance, my focus does the same thing. I’m typically unaware of the other tasks or parts of life when I am hyper-focused on getting something completed. Therefore, its good for me to take a day out of the week where I step back and look at the previous days and see what’s been accomplished. Sort of removing myself from the small world-view and stepping back for the large world view.
Well…I just wanted to offer a small peek into my own world-view. This isn’t a full definition of who I am — besides I don’t think any person can be fully defined until they’ve stopped walking the Path within this lifetime. Just a vantage point around the edge of my own circle of focus….
