At this juncture

Do you want to know what I have been thinking? I will transcribe it for you.

Why is everyone so suspicious of my honest efforts to examine the world? Why must the painting be complete before I submit it for review? Why are we so opposed to each other? Why Why Why? Why can't we look for the real together? We are all suspended in webs of significance that we ourselves have made. Why do you demand a fully formed web to hop to before you can admit the holes and dangling ends of your own?

Why do we have to be blind to believe? Why? Why do we have to pretend our way is the one true? Why can't we not know? Why can't we know that we don't know? And why can't we explore? Listen, dear friend, I am not trying to prove anything to you, I am not trying to realign your commitments. I am just saying as I see. There is no holeless web. That is why you will always be able to find the holes in my own. How astute of you. Find your own holes, seeker, and peer through them, and see whatcha see. We are wandering arachnids, spinning spinning. We live for the motion, we are Columbus on the high seas, only we come not to conquer, but to adore, to expand, to accept your hospitality and to learn your peaceable ways.

Fat Charlie the archangel sloped into the room
He said, "I have no opinion about this,
and I have no opinion about that."
Sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon,
He said, "Well I don't claim to be happy about this,
and I don't seem to be happy about that."

-Mr. Pauly Simon

I love when I find an album that does everything right, that I feel like I could listen to forever. It is as though I have arrived. I think, "Well, I'll just listen to this for the rest of my life. I could listen to someone else, but they will not satisfy me like this. This is the one, it is." That is how I feel about Graceland by Paul Simon. It is just right and just right. I would rather just listen to it forever. I hate when I discover a moment when I don't want to listen to it.

I am wishing, at this juncture, that I had put more effort into really making something of my loves, like songwriting and poetry and books. I so want a life that is non-traditional, but all the options either look impossible or pathetic.

They say do what you love. I think I should try reading and writing in a coffee shop for a living. I think I could do it most excellently for all eternity. Or is this one of those places where "they" has let me down? When they say "Do what you love," do they really mean "Take these available options we have given you, and choose the one that will create for you the least misery"? If only the world were truly a place where we could all just blossom, just live as happy as we wanted to. These in-between times, when I am trying to tip toe to my next big step, when it isn't just plotted out for me, these are the times I get so rebellious, I feel indignance at the whole thing, I imagine a life that would be truly satisfying and uncomplicated, and I see how utterly inaccessible that life is to me. I will sell out, I will send precious email forwards, I will wear a suit that I will never feel at home in, I will become a person that the current me yawns at. It is inevitable. It is so ugly. Dear Capitalism, You are not the bearer of freedom and prosperity to the world. This is what you do to us. Sincerely, The Disenchanted Youth.

"But long ago, now, all my favorite teachers went the way of most of the polar bears." -Kurt Vonnegut

TEXT TEXT TEXT. Words and words.

I do not want to be everything. This is a step. I don't want a business suit and I don't want misery. I want to travel, but oh, how I want to come home. My roots are here, and I will not for a moment let the globe-trotters tell me that that makes me boring. I want the earth, I want trees. I want history and independent news sources and progressivist patriotism. I want berets and trails of smoke, I want less technology oozing into my life. I want thinking and patterns, grounded thinking with sleeves rolled up like Brad Frazier. I want smiles upon smiles and tears rolling down. I know, I know. I must be the architect of my own spectacular life, I must carve it with my own two hands, that is the only way. No one will deliver it to my door, ready-made. I know, the carving is half the fun. But it is so tedious!

I will say this about my scholarly endeavors: I do not want them to stop because I am leaving the academy. This is the way I will remember my story: I am leaving the academy because they wanted my allegiance, they wanted me to elevate myself and to assert myself in opposition to all others, they wanted me to play a game and support the right causes. I am leaving the academy to follow my own voice. I will read what I want to read and set my own agenda, and say what is mine to say, but I am not leaving school because I do not love thinking, because I do not love sociology and feminist theology and continental philosophy and interfaith dialogue and Thich Nhat Hanh and Carol Christ and Friedrich Nietzsche. I am leaving because I DO love all of those things, and I don't need a lifetime of debt to demonstrate my love for them or to wade into it. How beautiful it is to learn without restraints, without threats of failure or financial ruin, without a load bearing down on my back, without deadlines and dancing for approval. How beautiful.

I had the title Poet
and maybe I was one
for a while
Also the title Singer
was kindly accorded me
even though
I could barely carry a tune
For many years
I was known as a Monk
I shaved my head and wore robes
and got up very early
I hated everyone
but I acted generously
and no one found me out

-Leonard Cohen