Paradise by the Dashboard Light

It's literally been a few years since I've been involved in the blogosphere--for several real-life reasons. . . .

But I'm trying to return more to myself lately and return to activity. I have a few trips coming up this winter to that end and I'd like to share them here. Am thinking about using this space as a personal dashboard for my progress and status on these things that are important to me that I've been neglecting. Of course, this'll probably be less philosophically juicy than the old online incarnation--but it may be the case that I'm less philosophically juicy.

All of this amounts to discipline, of course. It's so easy to slip into the daily routine (thanks, Rilke) dictated by others' expectations and needs. It's so easy to find oneself one day characterized as unremarkable by another and think, "Crap, when did that happen? I used to at least be an interesting mess." I think, for me, the key lately has been finding the discipline to maintain oneself when so much is asked of and placed upon you.

So, I want to quantify my self-denial or self-actualization. I want to examine where I've been compromising and losing and flittering out.

I've read a lot to the end of "letting go" being a desirable skill. Maybe that's the counterpoint. That we should be so malleable as to be able to let anything go as far as expectations for what we will be able to do with our time and our lives, and as far as any expectations for what will make us happy, even with the theater of past experience playing in front of us.

Then there is the other. And that's where it gets really tricky.