Wow. What is it about home that sucks it out of me? What residual crap am I dealing with that has nothing whatsoever to do with my present life? Because I really am at a loss to discover what could be the instigator of my numbness. As soon as I got off the plane in Ft Myers I felt it beginning. By the time I got home I was ready to collapse into my useless routine. There is nothing remotely cruddy enough about my life here that would explain this reaction.

In fact, I did some fantastic reading, writing and soul-searching on the plane ride from Detroit. You wanna see some? But wait, before I do that, let me just say that my growth and emergence from whom I have been to whom I could be is inevitably going to be slow and incremental. So I would be wise to cut myself a little slack. Okay, here’s the quotation:

Wisdom is seemingly a cure for what I frequently consider neuroses. The seeking of wisdom. The imparting of it. Wisdom may not be a static state of being. It must find expression. I like to be static, to find defining characteristics of myself, others, or situations, and label them or pinpoint them. But what if it is in the striving for this clarification that truth and beauty lie? Not to mention serenity and open-endedness? It feels like a paradox: motion, generosity of spirit, and active inquiry may be the pathway to inner calmness and balance. Maybe it is akin to yin and yang – one without the other is a spiral downward. Passion and reason, as Gibran says. He continuously attributes his higher sense of wisdom to observing the menial day-to-day lives of the villagers of Orphalese (The Prophet). Give and take. A giver needs a receiver and vice versa. What use is wisdom without confusion, and how can the confused strive towards anything without learned guidance?

I guess one of the sources of my neurotic behavior is my need to find equality and fairness in the world. But maybe that is a flawed aspiration in the first place. That would lead to a stasis and eventual deterioration. For how does one determine the superior philosophy to use as the benchmark for a good life? Whatever and whoever are eliminated will end up being squashed, discounting any equality.

originally published on 12/8/07