Turning Saints into the Sea
I don't know what the deal is, but everything seems to weigh a lot more seriously on my mind lately. I don't really mean serious in a negative way - in fact, as long as you're not stuck in serious-thought-mode constantly for years on end, I look at this positively. But still - life, even when not overwhelming, sure can seem...huge?
I end up wondering how it comes about. In this particular instance, I look back and see how frustrated I constantly felt in Uruguay by the nearly constant barrage of disorganization, wasted time, and overall dicking around. In the midst of it all, I watched people flow in and out of Karumbe, all the while feeling emotionally distant from the contact-high they all experienced for two weeks. There was more observation than there was interaction - or, maybe that's not true at all, but I look back and realize how often that was the overriding sentiment inhabiting my mind. There were a lot of elements of life that I missed horribly - variety in my day, a job that was actually challenging intellectually (still holding out on this one, but I'll bite my tongue on current work related matters), my guitar and the quiet peace of sitting down and writing songs, a home in which to live, and the best pleasures in the world - a comfortable couch and my girlfriend reading on it next to me.
Arriving back in the States felt like an overstimulting rush of all of those things, and I've been taking time in the past two months to slowly sift my way through all of those above elements and piece them together into something that makes more sense. I've tried to savor it, and it's been fun to complacently enjoy having all these parts of my life back that were gone. But now I'm realizing that all of the pieces fit differently than they did before I left back in October, and that although that is in no way a bad thing, I need so badly to jump start my thought processes on everything in the world around me. It recently started with a string of realizations about 'the way things work' at the lab in which I work, and I want to let that awareness flow into everything else. I want to read more about my country as it approaches what will become a pivotal point in its history. I want to practice what I preach and continue to try to live healthier and greener. To record this album and be proud of it. To continually remember that I don't have it all figured out. To figure out a plan for graduate school and then put it into action. To relax and to exhaust myself with each alternating stride.
I end up wondering how it comes about. In this particular instance, I look back and see how frustrated I constantly felt in Uruguay by the nearly constant barrage of disorganization, wasted time, and overall dicking around. In the midst of it all, I watched people flow in and out of Karumbe, all the while feeling emotionally distant from the contact-high they all experienced for two weeks. There was more observation than there was interaction - or, maybe that's not true at all, but I look back and realize how often that was the overriding sentiment inhabiting my mind. There were a lot of elements of life that I missed horribly - variety in my day, a job that was actually challenging intellectually (still holding out on this one, but I'll bite my tongue on current work related matters), my guitar and the quiet peace of sitting down and writing songs, a home in which to live, and the best pleasures in the world - a comfortable couch and my girlfriend reading on it next to me.
Arriving back in the States felt like an overstimulting rush of all of those things, and I've been taking time in the past two months to slowly sift my way through all of those above elements and piece them together into something that makes more sense. I've tried to savor it, and it's been fun to complacently enjoy having all these parts of my life back that were gone. But now I'm realizing that all of the pieces fit differently than they did before I left back in October, and that although that is in no way a bad thing, I need so badly to jump start my thought processes on everything in the world around me. It recently started with a string of realizations about 'the way things work' at the lab in which I work, and I want to let that awareness flow into everything else. I want to read more about my country as it approaches what will become a pivotal point in its history. I want to practice what I preach and continue to try to live healthier and greener. To record this album and be proud of it. To continually remember that I don't have it all figured out. To figure out a plan for graduate school and then put it into action. To relax and to exhaust myself with each alternating stride.