Blogging Again

I haven't blogged in over a year. I think it's time I resume. Writing is probably what I do best, yet, I haven't been doing it. Not here. Not like this.

I think I know why. I think I concluded sometime back that I have nothing worthwhile to say. So, if nobody, including me, wants to read my hollow words, why bother writing them?

Yet, what else am I going to do that engages me more? I haven't been habitually bored doing what I've been doing. I've been reading content online and on my Kindle. I've been posting on Facebook and reading and commenting on other people's posts. I've been watching entertaining programs on TV in the evening. I've been listening to great podcasts and to my beloved Hiromi and other musicians online at home and on my walks, and on CD when I drive. Even so, something's been missing.

I haven't been writing content that forces me to reflect as deeply, sustain my focus as strongly, and express myself as fully as I can. My inner light may be dim, but I think I still want to let what there is of it shine. I've been proverbially hiding it under a bushel for too long.

No, I'm not a smart guy with brilliant things to say that people probably want to read. But I am a guy who still desires to do what he does best instead of stewing in the chronic dissatisfaction of settling for less. And I'm someone who wants to get better at what he does best by making it clearer, more concise, more veridical, and more pleasing to himself and to any reader who may come along.

So, it's time to get and stay with it. Maybe I won't do all my effortful writing here. But I need to do it somewhere and keep doing it. And, for the time being, this is probably as good a place as any and better than most.

Time to Shine

I used to post here every year on my birthday. Then I missed a year or maybe more. This year, I missed again. Or I decided not to post. I decided it would be better if I waited until the day after to write about the day before.

I enjoyed my birthday yesterday. Maybe more than usual. It's not that I did anything special. There was no party and cake or romantic dinner with my wife in some fancy restaurant.

Instead, I drove to my wife's Thai Buddhist temple and presented gifts to the temple in return for receiving good karma that will help me enjoy a better life in my next incarnation, or something like that. I don't believe that stuff, but I like to give and to help out the temple even if I receive nothing more from it than the pleasure of giving. And I like to please my wife who wants me to give to help out the temple and earn good karma for myself and for her.

After the presentation and the usual morning round of chanting, which I always sit back with eyes closed and listen to respectfully while the others carry on, I piled delicious potluck Asian food on my plate and savored every bite until I was uncommonly full by recent standards. And many people, including some of the monks, wished me a Happy Birthday.

After all that, I drove home while my wife remained behind, and I took a nap and then rose and started thanking people on Facebook for their birthday wishes. I really enjoyed reading their wishes and replying to them. Yes, I harbor no illusions that my birthday means anything special to them, unless they happen to share it, which some of my Facebook friends and acquaintances do. I know they're just being nice in what is probably an obligatory sort of way. After all, there's always someone we know on Facebook who's having a birthday no matter what date it is, especially if we know a lot of people on Facebook. Yet, I still appreciate, more than I ever have before, that they took a few seconds to write to me.

As I wrote on Facebook today, the older I get, and I'm well into my 60's now, the more I appreciate the simpler things in life. Yesterday I was and today I am still filled with gratitude that I was able to experience yet another birthday and that I am still alive and still in abundant possession of my modest faculties.

Is this because I know my time is running out? That's surely part of it. My time IS running out. And given what may loom in my near future, it might be better if it runs out sooner than later. But I think it's also the case that when we've been around long enough, we come to realize, if we're lucky, that many of the so-called "big" things in life--i.e., buying costly or prestigious items,  accomplishing ballyhooed goals and reaping extravagant rewards for it--is often not as fulfilling as stroking my dying cat on my lap, seeing my wife off to work in the morning, reading a wonderful essay on philosophy or science, listening to a beautiful Hiromi solo, or thanking someone for their birthday message.

I don't know if I'll be around next year to write on or soon after my birthday. I never know from year to year, and I know even less this year than ever before. Yet, from this point on, I'm going to write more and do more and be better for as long as I can. Not because I expect external rewards for it. But because it's my inner calling. To do my best and be my best.

I will focus much of my effort, wherever I am and whatever my circumstances, on producing a podcast and writing a book on free will and on becoming a professional writer and podcaster. Nobody would hire me for anything else because I'm old and have nothing to offer them. But I can speak and I can write and I can deliver something to this world that nobody else can exactly like me, especially if I stop trying to be different or better than anyone else. And I've hidden my light under a bushel for far, far too long.

Time to shine.

Reaching Out to a Fellow Blogger

I've been reading an outstanding blog by a very smart young man for several years. He majors in physics at a Midwestern university and is wrapping up his coursework there while hoping to be admitted for postgraduate work to a top tier school such as MIT to complete his PhD in theoretical physics with a specialization in cosmology.

But, over the years, he's blogged brilliantly not only about his intense interest in theoretical physics and cosmology but also about areas and issues in philosophy, politics, religion, economics, international news, society and culture, and so on in addition to addressing very personal issues concerning his recurring bouts of depression and enduring alienation from mainstream society.

In his most recent blogpost, he expresses extreme displeasure over having to take humanities courses he despises--because they focus on rote memorization of trivial names, places, dates, and research paper style formats--and needing to earn A's in them so that he can maintain his perfect 4.0 GPA in order to have any chance of being accepted by a school like MIT, and he worries that if he isn't admitted to one of these preeminent universities, his hopes and dreams of contributing something of scientific substance to the world will be all but dashed, and, as soon as he can earn enough money from a second-rate teaching job at a second-rate college, he'll just want to melt away into the wilderness and be a hermit for the rest of his miserable life.

I feel saddened by this bright young man's reclusiveness and depressive outlook and wish that there were something I could do to help him. But then I'm in no position to help anyone grappling with challenges not so dissimilar in some respects to ones that have plagued and seemingly gotten the best of me for most of my life. However, I couldn't read his blogpost without trying to do something, and so I wrote the following comment on his blog. I hope it helps at least in some small measure.

I am very concerned about your proneness to depression, your disdain for ordinary human interaction, and your belief that if you can’t make it into MIT or its lofty equivalent, you essentially have nothing left to live for except being a disillusioned drone eking out a living until you can retire as a hermit living aimlessly in the wilderness.
And I say this as someone who, although he lacks your obvious brilliance in math and science, has always felt at odds with society and uncomfortable with much of what passes for socialization.
But, in my case, I’ve long been interested in many disciplines and issues, aided and abetted by my increasing appreciation of the interconnectedness of all phenomena and of all disciplines that study these phenomena, so that I’ve come to regard almost no academic subject as boring or worthless, and almost all learning, whether curricular or extracurricular, as potentially illuminating and enriching.
I won’t deny that I share your aversion to grinding, rote memorization of dates and places, but I’m guessing that there are other aspects of your humanities courses that are or at least could be fascinating to an open and curious mind, and that gifted and accomplished theoretical physicists from Einstein and Oppenheimer in the past to Ed Witten today have opened their minds and interest to disciplines and subjects far outside their own discipline and have probably been the happier for it.
Moreover, while I too prefer to discuss subjects and issues that most people would probably prefer to pass up in favor of “small” talk about their jobs, their families, their favorite sports team, or the latest insult from some politician or gossip about some celebrity, I have learned to take more pleasure in the company of others by looking for and appreciating the beauty that lies in almost everyone whether they’re talking about the sacred or the profane, the profound or the mundane.
I hope you make it into MIT and get to do the kind of work there that you heart longs to do, but I also hope that, whether you do or don’t, you’ll find life to be richer and more fulfilling than you seem to now, and that other people from all walks of life and levels of intelligence will come to occupy a more vital and pleasurable part of your life than they seem to now.In the meantime, I hope you keep on blogging about yourself and your experiences inside and outside academia, because your blog has been one of my longtime favorites, and it’s been a real pleasure to get to know you as well as I’d like to think I’ve come to know you and your beautiful search for truth.

What would you say to this young man if you could?