My train was delayed for four hours, blog time

In many ways I went to India looking for an answer. Any answer. Any absolute. I was trying to link ecstasy with the absolute, with good. I had all faith in the true self.

What I found is best quoted by Alan Bloom:

Such experience is a condition of investigating the question, "What is man?," in relation to his highest aspirations as opposed to his low and common needs. A liberal education means precisely helping students to pose this question to themselves, to become aware that the answer is neither obvious nor simply unavailable, and that there is no serious life in which this question is not a continuous concern. Despite all efforts to pervert it...the question that every young person asks, "Who am I?," the powerful urge to follow the Delphie command, "Know thyself," which is born in each of us, means in the first place "What is man?" And in our chronic lack of certainty, this comes down to knowing the alternative answers and thinking about them.

to paraphrase: No body knows what the hell is going on, or why, but we have some pretty good ideas about it, and if you want to contribute to society, lets keep thinking about it.

When I was little I would always play with LEGOs, letting my imagination run wild within the confines of a small box. The thing I enjoyed the most was creating the perfect replica: following the instructions verbatim to have every nub in the right spot. I liked that, because in the end you got something that was really cool and all you had to do was be smart enough to follow the directions (plus it is really cool feeling to think visually like that).

I thought that that translated over to real life as well: people, most people, were following some sort of directions on how to live an excellent life. All you have to do is connect the dots and you will be ready to go. It took me a long time to realize that doesn't happen. This past month was perhaps the final nail in that coffin. It happened when I visited my Mom at her office--a place I hadn't been for many years. Instead of having the tint of people who knew what they were doing, it looked more like what it is: people just making a living. I thought everyone had some grand plan, some grand idea that was driving their life...nope. Not so much. And that's OK.

I didn't find any absolute in India. In fact, India might be the worst place in the world to find absolutes. Maybe that made it the best place to go. We have been looking for absolutes for over 4000 years, who the hell am I to assume I have found one.

From before to after India my vocabulary has changed. Before, it was:

awe, wonder, being in the moment, ecstasy, absolute, idealistic, spirituality, soul, altruism, true-self, glocalism, emotions, psychology, shamanism, awareness, good, why?, ego

awareness, good, awe, ego and why? made the transition
Now it is:

base, grounded, process, rational vs. ecstatic, pragmatism, self-righteousness, entitlement, philosophy, history, logic, interconnections, awareness, good, awe, why?, truth, ego, image, projecting

I'm excited to see where it goes. Now that you guys are trying to get me to read fiction, I think you should read some non fiction. Especially The Closing of the American Mind. I would love to chat about this.

pyar