*Sigh*

I'm in a funk.

Not a major funk. Not a major depression by any means. But definitely some kind of funk. And a persistent one.

I suppose it's just the winter thing. I'm usually in some kind of funk starting around February. But I don't know. The funk blocks clear thinking on the matter.

There's really nothing wrong. I like my job a lot, though it is exhausting. I like living here a lot, though it can be somewhat lonely at times.

Often I don't know what to do or how to spend my time. I come home from work and I cook dinner, and then I just have this "now what?" feeling. I need a hobby. But I have a bunch of hobbies. But I always seem to have to force myself to do them. Like drawing. I have a set of oil pastels. I like to draw. But lately I haven't wanted to. Why? And chainmaille. I have at least 2 chainmaille projects I'm supposed to be working on. I downloaded a few seasons of Star Treck: The Next Generation thinking I could get some chain work done while watching. I'm almost done with season 2, but I haven't started any chainmaille yet. And writing. I like writing. But it seems that I never want to sit down and write. I didn't even want to write a blog post today. I'm forcing myself to. I feel like I don't know what to say, or how to say it. I feel like this is the worst blog post ever. Stupid post. All disjointed and even more rambly than usual.

*Sigh*

So yea, I'm in a funk.

I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know if I want to stay here for a second year or come home. Or go somewhere else. I don't know where else I want to travel to, what other places I want to see. I don't know what I want to accomplish in life. I don't know what kind of person I want to be. When I do come back to the states, I don't know where I want to live or what I want to do. I don't really know anything. Nor do I really want to think about it all that much. When I first got here my mind was buzzing with thinking about my dreams, and my next steps, and blah blah blah. But I don't really have any dreams at the moment. Nothing specific anyway. When I think about my future, all that comes to my mind is a big, endless, gray field. No, seriously. I used to see different possible futures, like me as a researcher, or living in an earthship, or this or that. Now I think about it, I just see the color gray stretching out infinitely. And I guess I'm scared that if I don't fill that void with something, some kind of dream, than I'll never do anything. Which is silly. I suppose life happens regardless of intent.

And I want a girlfriend. I think. I assume. Or am I just in the habit of wanting a girlfriend? No, I'm pretty sure I actually do. But that's complicated. The temporary nature of my being here. The plans I used to have for the future that have been replaced by the gray void. How do I explain polyamoury to a Korean girl? As fringe as it is in the states, it would sound completely ridiculous here. Of course, I could do monogamy for a while. In fact it might even be nice for a change. But can I permanently part with such a fundamental aspect of my philosophy? And if not, than any relationship I get into based on monogamy must be temporary. But is that fair to someone? Is it right to get into a relationship with someone based on terms you know will force an end to the relationship at somepoint down the road?

Besides, the truth is I don't just want a girlfriend, I want a domestic partner. I guess I'm starting to feel those adult hormones or something. I don't just want a person to go out with, and hold hands with, and have sex with. I want a person to come home to, to cook dinner with, to be silently in the company of. Of course, I realize that that doesn't just happen. You need to start out with one and it builds to the next. But, in this life here, I fear that any sort of domestic partner situation is really quite impossible. And of course it all goes back to the complications of my non-permanence here as well as my less than typical views on love and relationships.

*Sigh*

This sure is a funky funk....

Dreams

First of all, it should be noted that this post might be somewhat more rambly than normal. Which I suppose is saying something. I'm feeling philosophical and I just feel like writing I guess. Thoughts, you know. Nothing to do with Korea.

Dreams. What are they exactly? I'm a dreamer. Which isn't to simply say that I daydream, or that I envision an idealistic future, which I do, but that I'm very into the act of dreaming, you know while I'm asleep and stuff. Do you dream vividly?  Do you wake up with detailed memory of everything you've experienced while asleep? I do. The term "experience" is completely valid. While dreaming you experience whetever your mind creates, you believe it to be real, during those hours of "rest" you find yourself in worlds and environments that you completely accept to be truth. They are experience as valid as any that you have while awake.

And what does that mean exactly? What does it mean that you exist in a place that waking reality says is meaningless, but that for the time you accept as all there is. Do your decisions in such a reality matter? Decisions that don't affect your life in anyway, sure, but while you are in the dream world, you don't know that. I have struggled with the question: if you do something immoral in a dream, believing the circumstances of the dream, and still feeling as if your actions follow the law of free will, is the act actually immoral? Despite the fact that it has no real world consequences, is the fact that you believe the act to be based in reality at the time mean that it is in fact a matter of morality? Similarly, if you display an act of great bravery in a dream, if you believe the dream to be reality at the time, does that speak to your character? I believe the answer to these questions to be, "yes".

I dream extraordinarily vividly. From discussing the matter with other people, it seems that I dream more vividly than the average person. I have had occasions in which, upon waking, I have remembered my entire night of dreams, from falling asleep to waking. And I don't care what science says on the matter. I know what I've experienced.

And I've began noticing, evaluating, and at times experimenting with my experiences while dreaming. And I absolutely believe that you exert the same degree of free will in your dreams that you do while you are awake. The environment, the circumstances, may simply be a manifestation of your subconscious,  but at the root of the dream is the experience of consciousness, the ability to make choices, the belief that what you are experiencing is real. And isn't this in and of itself vastly meaningful? I have recalled in my dreams, upon wakening, the moment of choice, the instant of deciding this or that, and have been able to then analyze the effect said choice had on the dream as a whole. I determine this to be significant, if not the entire purpose of dreaming in the first place.

I believe that through dreaming we discover who we truly are, we find out how we react to the most extreme of circumstances when we assume those circumstances to be completely factual, despite their extremity. I have had occasions in which the events of my dreams, and my choices therein, were so intense, as to elicit contemplation on the matter(s) for days to come. I have grown and changed myself in certain ways solely on the basis of such dreams. I have examined the decisions I made in those dreams, regretted my psychological response to extreme fictional events, evaluated the underlying reasons for such responses,  become more in touch with my emotional and logical decision making processes, and then altered them. How is this not a beautiful and powerful thing?

Where am I going with this, or why am I bringing it up? I'm not sure. It crossed my mind tonight. I'm in a philosophical and artistic mood, I felt like writing, and this is something that is frequently on my mind. Pay no attention to it if it means nothing to you. I know some of you don't ever remember your dreams. But if you do, know please know the power that they hold.

      -Mongoose

Whistfully Whimsical Whispered Words

I sit and sigh,

But don’t know why,

And listen as the time goes by.

I start to cry,

But don’t know why,

Perhaps because I’ll never fly.

Life is a place,

And Earth is a time,

Where wonders ceaselessly wander on.

And on that note, I’ll wander too,

While with that note, I play a tune.

Did you ever ask

To sip from a flask

Full of remorse,

To later endorse,

Or even enforce,

The way we play the game?

Or maybe you said,

“I wish I was dead!”

Only to find,
in time,

A feeling of a different kind.

The answer, my friend,

Is not with the wind,

Though the wind is with the answer.

A dancer may sing,

Yet no one will bring

The truth before a king.

The rest, you see,

Is far beyond me,

And while I truly hate to leave you,

The rust on my face

Affords me no grace,

Allows me no space!

And so, with haste, I depart from this place.

But remember my friend,

It is only the end

When there is nothing left to mend.

Adieu

The Untitled Title

First of all, before getting into the body of this post, I would just like to say: I see you. Yes you. You know who you are. The Russian. See, I can look up a lot of interesting stats about this blog. I can look up page views by date, by browser type, by hardware brand, and by country. And I'm well aware that there is somebody from Russia reading my blog somewhat regularly. And this has been going on almost ever since I started this blog. In fact, Russia has the third most page views of any country, after the USA and South Korea, both of which make sense. I have 24 page views from Russia, which doesn't sound like a lot, but then, I only have 10 posts. So that's over 2 page views from Russia for each post. And it's not like this is a widely read blog. So I just want to say, to whoever is reading my blog in Russia, I know you're there. And if your some sort of comie spy....well that's fucking cool. I'm honored to have your attention. And if I have some friend in Russia that I didn't know about...well why the fuck didn't you tell me you were in Russia?! Send me some Borscht! I love that shit...

Alright, back to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

Lately I've been feeling more and more connected to Korea, attached to this life, comfortable, and less attached to the life I had back home. It's been a good feeling. I'm honestly consistently happier in this life than I've ever been before. And there doesn't seem to be any particular reason for it. Except, I suppose, that there's nothing on the horizon, nothing to anticipate, just the daily routine. And that's comfortable, and this is a comfortable place to have a routine. Or perhaps it's just the simple fact that this life remains a change of pace, a change of scenery, from the 25 years I spent in Cleveland, and that the simple freshness of it all still gives me joy even after 6 months here. Granted it is a magnificent city, with one of the best metro systems in the world, a myriad of wonderful parks, an endless number of things to do and places to see, and lots of cheap seafood.

Still I've become aware lately that lots of Koreans feel very much about living here the way I felt about living in Cleveland: "Yea, so?". And that fascinates me. I mean, it makes sense I suppose. But I've talked to so many Koreans who feel depressed, and stuck in a rut, and like they aren't doing anything interesting, and I just want to scream at them, "You live in Seoul! Do you have any idea how interesting that is?!". I want to take them to the endless cornfields of Ohio and ask them, "Does this look more interesting to you?". But the truth I'm realizing is that they probably would find it interesting. Because it's different from what they know. After all, that's what it means to be stuck in a rut, to be surrounded by what you know and to never experience anything new or different. I suppose then that there's something endemic to the modern psychology of the human race that spurs us to desire a variety of experiences. A Korean who moves to Cleveland might be just as happy and interested as I am to have moved from Cleveland to Seoul. Though the city of Seoul may be objectively superior in a number of definable ways, the subjective nature of experience is more affected by the variance between the two than anything else. I wonder why that is. It does seem as if for the majority of human history our survival depended on being in familiar territory, thus this must be a fairly recent development in our psyche. But I digress, that is an investigation that I am not prepared to entertain at this moment.

Still, despite how happy I've been recently, today something is different for some reason. I feel weird about everything. I feel very much in a kind of limbo. I don't feel connected today. I suppose I feel very aware of the temporary nature of this phase of my life. 6 months in I have a handful of friends, but nothing on the level of what I had back home. I have plenty of people to spend time with, but overall I feel more independent here, more on my own. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it's part of the reason I came, to develop that kind of independence and self sufficiency. But today the sense is that the whole purpose of being here is almost entirely self improvement, and that I'm not advancing my social life in any permanent or long term way. That is to say, I've made many alterations to my way of life that I think are very positive. I use public transportation almost exclusively (I don't have a car after all). I dry my cloths by hanging them (no cloths drier). I cook more frequently. I write more. I draw more. I feel productive and fulfilled. So I feel like I'm becoming a more complete individual, more like the person I want to be. But it's amazing how many of my long term desires are social. I want to build a community. I want to participate in and contribute to something larger than myself. More than just wanting a girlfriend, I want a domestic partner. These are goals that I can't fulfill here, that have to be on hold indefinitely until I return.

Simultaneously, however, I'm feeling less connected to back home as well. I'm so established in my life here, that I don't really feel any attachment to the life I had before. For the first time, I'm not excited when I imagine coming back home, but a little scared. There's people who I'm very connected to back home. That hasn't really changed. But when I come back home I won't have a job, or a place to live. I won't have a routine. I won't have this city, that, as mentioned, is a truly fabulous city. I have people back home and a community back home, but I don't have a life there. I have a life here, but I don't have a community or a future. Thus, at this moment I don't feel anchored or attached to anything. It's kind of a lonely feeling. And it's not a sharp, intense, or terrible loneliness, like I felt when I first got here. But it is deep and pervasive, though subtle.

In the past week I've heard from a lot of people back home about how proud and impressed they are with me for doing this. I have to admit, I have mixed feelings every time I hear that. Certainly it's nice to feel impressive, and to know that the people you care about are proud of you. But the longer I'm here, the longer it really just doesn't feel like all that big of a deal. Additionally, while back in the states I had this self impression of being an adventurous person, my experiences since coming here have forced me to reevaluate that position. I've met people that humble me in that sense. I've met people that have traveled all over the world. I've met people that have lived for more than a year in 4 or 5 different countries. For all I've seen and experienced, I've met people who have seen and experienced so much as to make me feel truly naive and uneducated about the world. So I'm left feeling, thinking, "What of this year in Korea? It's nothing. It's insignificant. It's a mere taste of the world, and nothing resembling a full portion." If I leave at the end of this year and come back to the states, and live there for the rest of my life, I won't be worldly, I won't have significant perspective, I won't have achieved any great understanding. I'll have a very limited perspective of a single culture out of hundreds. And what does that amount to really?

I realize that that paragraph sounds very negative. And I want to emphasize that my feelings aren't nearly as negative as such writing might indicate. The negativity is meant only to bring a degree of balance to the overwhelming positivity that I am receiving from all of you. I also acknowledge that what would be required in order to achieve such worldliness and such vast perspective would involve sacrificing the deep bonds that I have to the people who I am close to back home. Truly, I have come to realize how very fortunate I am to have bonds as strong as I do. While perhaps being incompatible with the epitome of worldliness, I realize that such bonds are something that those who are so worldly do not have, and in fact by definition are incapable of having. It is my hope that my limited perspective will be of some value to my community when I finally rejoin it.

And on that note, to those who consider themselves a part of my community, please comment on this post. It matters not to me whether I receive the comment here on the blog itself or on facebook. I receive so much feedback verbally, on the phone, often second hand, weeks or months after the post. But I can not convey how uplifting it is to receive written comments from you. Even if you are reading a post a month after I have made it, and you leave a message on my facebook wall about it, please know that such a gesture will uplift my spirits the moment it is received. My love for you and my deep connection to you has become more a part of my identity now than it ever has been before. Indeed, it has proven to be the strongest and most enduring thing within me.

    -Mongoose

Christmas

There is something particularly unique for me about being an expat during Christmas. Maybe it is because Christmas is such a major and distinct part of American culture, that there's nothing quite like Christmas to really drive the point home that we're not in fucking Kansas anymore. Or Ohio. Lot's of corn either way, so really what's the difference.

In a lot of ways, this is the most Christmasy I've ever felt, perhaps in an effort to compensate for the lack of what I'm used to having rammed down my throat. Now don't get me wrong, Christmas is definitely a thing here in Korea. There's signs of Christmas all over. Christmas music drifts out of the storefronts as you walk down the street, there's a modest amount of decorations to be seen, and there's a couple public Christmas trees here and there. We decorated the school, and had a Christmas party for the kids, complete with one of the teachers dressing up as Santa and handing out presents that the parents had brought in for them.

But it is definitively not the Christmas that I am used too. Everything was open both last night and today. There was no obvious difference in the hustle and bustle of the city in any way. And actually, that turned out to be my least favorite part of Christmas in Korea. It's funny, because in past years I've complained about how boring Christmas is, because there's nothing to do, and I have no one to celebrate it with. But also, everything is just so quiet, and that's such a unique thing, that I kind of missed it today. It just didn't feel like Christmas with people...you know...doing stuff.

On the other hand, Christmas in Korea is infinitely more secular. It's doesn't in any way have the feel or vibe of a deeply religious holiday. I find this interesting, because I don't believe that Christmas is a holiday acknowledged or endorsed by the government in any official capacity here, whereas is is in the US, though there is obviously a mostly universal unofficial recognition of it here. Also, I find the secularist Korean Christmas incredibly ironic, because Korea is much more uniformly Christian that the USA. I mean seriously, except for the bud-hist monks that actually live at the temples (which seem to exist mostly to give people a unique vacation option) the entire country is Christian. I'm guessing somewhere in the range of 95% of Koreans would identify themselves as such, though this is just a guess and based off of absolutely no actual statistical information.

But you don't get the vibe of it being a religious holiday at all. There aren't any religious decorations (read: no manger scenes outside churches. Though to be fair, where would they put them?). There isn't a mass flight to churches on Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass (I'm not even sure churches had a midnight mass). And I don't think any more people attended church today than normally do on Sunday. And it's not that there aren't any religious nut-jobs here. There's a fringe group that actually seems to believe that the second coming of Christ happened about 40 years ago. It was in Korea of course. Jesus #2 is Korean. I found that funny. But still, most people seem to have a very relaxed view of the holiday.

All and all it seems to me that Koreans have accepted Christmas for what it is, for what we so desperately want to deny it as in the US: nothing more than an excuse to exchange gifts and time with loved ones. And really, I think that's totally appropriate. That's what the winter holiday has been about for a significant part of recorded history, regardless of what anybody wanted to call it. Family and presents. And I think a gift giving holiday is good. It doesn't have to be a major retail extravaganza as it has become in the states in the past few decades. I don't think you have to get big elaborate expensive gifts, or feel pressured to get something for every single person you know. But it's nice to have an excuse to buy, or make, a little something for those who are important to you. You know, as a way to let them know that they are important to you. That pretty much seems to be how Koreans celebrate Christmas, and I totally support that.

So being in Korea has changed my feelings on Christmas. I appreciate the secular aspects of it much more now that the religious aspects aren't being forced upon me. I also more greatly appreciate the aspect of having an excuse to spend time with friends and family now that, you know, I can't. I missed you all much more than usual today. Really, I'm surprised by how much I missed the Christmas that I am used to. I found myself wishing everyone last night a Merry Christmas, which is not a thing I've ever really made a point of doing before. But like I said, with all the silly religion removed, I guess I've realized the value in having a winter time family/friends based holiday, whatever the hell you want to call it.

So Merry Christmas to All.
     -Mongoose

The Simple Life

Hmmm. Life. What an interesting concept. Not the concept of life as a miracle, or a statistical improbability. Not the spiritual or philosophical question of "What is Life?" or "What does it mean to be alive?". Not even the question of how to define life, or determine what is considered to be alive. Life as in the simple process of living, and doing, you know, life things.

I mean, what are we really supposed to do with this Life thing anyway? Is there a proper way to spend it? Is there some sort of goal, or thing to be accomplished? Can you really fail at life? Or is it really just opened ended, like the most realistic sandbox video game EVER!!!...? Certainly some people feel happy and satisfied with their lives, and some people don't. Is that the whole point? To be happy and satisfied? And if so, why are some people happy and satisfied and others are not? Is it because of any tangible or definable detail in their lives? Is it because of the things they have, or things they do, or the people they spend time with? Is there a right way to spend time and a wrong way to spend time?

When I lived in Cleveland, I was not consistently happy or satisfied. I had a job that I mostly enjoyed, lived in a beautiful house with my best friend, and had a large circle of very close friends. Yet, on a day to day basis, I was not happy. Certainly I had a lot of fun. There were parties, and get togethers, and camping events that I looked forward to and loved. But in between all of those, there was just a bunch of....boring life things. Paying bills, and cooking food, cleaning all of the things, going to the store to buy necessary stuff, running errands in general. And these necessary tasks never went away! There was no sense of completion, because they needed to be done again and again, week after week, month after month. I felt like I was drowning in an endless sea of mundane tasks. These things weren't fun, they weren't exciting, but they filled the majority of my time day to day, during the in between times when I was waiting for the next fun thing. And so since most of the time I had to do stuff that I didn't really want to do, and I only got to spend a little bit of time doing the things I did really wanted to do, I found that it was difficult to feel a real sense of satisfaction.

Of course, these repetitive, mundane tasks are, in fact, life. They comprise the foundation of existing as an adult in this world. Everyone has them. No one gets out of it. So, realizing this, I made a decision. I decided that upon moving to Korea, I would change my perspective, and start learning to enjoy just living. I was determined to live without looking ahead, without a goal, without simply waiting around for the next party, the next time I got to have fun. I wanted to simply find happiness and satisfaction in my day to day mundane life.

Well, that didn't happen. I came here, and at first EVERYTHING was exciting, and nothing was mundane, and I was scared and elated, and emotionally charged pretty much ALL the time, and of course I loved every minute of it. But then that went away, the culture shock eased, I started to get used to it, and those pesky little mundane bits of existence slowly crept their way back into...you know...life. But the first few weeks had been so intense, that I wasn't even used to them anymore. They showed up almost like a surprise. Like an annoying friend that you didn't invite to the party, but then they show up anyway, and you're like, "God damn it, not you again!"

And so for the first couple months of being here, I fell back into the pattern of just trying to get through my mundane week full of necessary tasks, just trying to survive until the weekend when I could have fun again.

And then I got fired. And then I was homeless. And stuff was crazy. And then I went to India.

And something happened in India. You see, at the Ashram there really wasn't any fun to be had. It was peaceful, and relaxing, but certainly not "fun". There wasn't anything to occupy my time except mundane tasks. In fact, there weren't even really enough of those to fill the vast emptiness of time I had. There were no computers or video games to tick away the empty hours with. No one to party or drink with. There was just meditating, eating, and....and not a whole lot. For the first week it was actually almost maddeningly boring. But I started finding things to do. I started exercising every day. I volunteered in the kitchen doing dishes. I went to the library and read a lot. And I found myself starting to feel peaceful in my lack of excitement. I found myself starting to enjoy the mundanes of each day. I was happy while I was doing dishes. I was happy while I was showering, and doing my laundry. I was free from having to worry about what was going to be happening later, or next weekend. There was nothing in the future to think about, there was only the present moment.

And so I reconnected with my desire to simply enjoy living, and in fact found the mental space that would allow me to do so. I brought it back with me to Korea.

So now I've been at the new job for three weeks, moved in and settled at my new house for two weeks, and finally, for the first time, I find myself enjoying living. I work quite a lot, but it's satisfying, enjoyable work. And when I get off work, I go and exercise. And then I go to the grocery store and buy food to cook dinner with. And then I go home and I cook dinner. And then I clean my room, and prepare materials for class the next day, and then I go to sleep. I repeat this Monday through Thursday. And I've come to find this routine, mundane way of life extremely satisfying and fulfilling. There's nothing to worry about and no expectations. There's no goal to be accomplished or worked towards. There's simply life, and being alive, and doing necessary life things, and for some reason I'm enjoying it like never before. It's peaceful.

I live in a much quieter area of the city than I did before. It doesn't really feel that much like a city. It's a quiet, more residential area. I live in a divided house instead of a 23 story apartment building. There's one little corner bar and no restaurants in the blocks surrounding my new place, instead of literally more of both than I could have ever counted in the neighborhood I lived in before. School is within walking distance, so I don't take the subway except on the weekends. At first I was a little sad about it, because I did really enjoy the high energy dynamics of my previous location. But it's growing on me quite a bit.

I also work quite a bit more than I did before, around 10 hours a day. But I enjoy the work considerably more. I have more freedom and creativity with my lessons than I did before. I'm given very little in the way of materials, often only a single page in one of the books with a picture of two people having a short and basic conversation. "What will you do after school today?" "I will go shopping with my mother. What about you?" "I will play soccer with my friend." And then I have to teach a 40 minute lesson based off of that.

One day the lesson covered language used in a store. "Where are the....How much is the....I'll take three....". So I went in with a stack of fake money and a jar of jelly beans. After going over the language, I gave each student $20, and I sat down at a desk with the jelly beans. Each student took a turn coming up to me and asking, "Do you have any jelly beans? How much are they? I'd like (however many they could buy for $20)". It was really funny too, because I kept changing the price. I'd sell the jelly beans for $2 a piece to one student, and then for $10 a piece to the next. Then I helped them figure out that if I wasn't giving them a good price, they could try and buy some of the jelly beans that I had given another kid for cheap. It was great fun.

Also, we do fun things, and every day is not the same. One day we went on a field trip, which was awesome. I feel like such a responsible adult, taking kindergartners on a bus and telling them to fasten their seat belt. It's weird, and creepy, but surprisingly satisfying. We also do performances. For example, I'm teaching my class the song "Santa Baby" for the Christmas party on Friday. I even made up a little dance for them to do. It's hilarious. And I wrote a little play for them to do for their graduation performances at the end of February. I'll start teaching that to them in January. And the kids are so much fun too. Sometimes I feel less like a teacher and more like a much older brother. Luckily I had a good example in that department. Part of it is that there's no taboo about being physically playful and/or affectionate with your students in Korea. The girls love to give me hugs and they try to sit on my lap sometimes, while the boys love to horse around and play fight. I picked up one of the boys the other day, turned him upside down, and threatened to put him in the trash can. He seemed to love that. God, I'm becoming so good with children it's almost sickening.

So it seems I've figured out how to enjoy just living, more or less. I feel like an adult. I feel all responsible and stuff. What's happening to me?

India, Psilosophy, and Spirituality

I want to take a moment to say, before I jump into this next post, that I am overwhelmed by the positive reactions I have received to this blog. When I started this blog when I first left for Korea, I thought of it more as a personal exercise in regular writing, as well as something of a public diary to help me keep a record of my experiences. I thought maybe there would be about a dozen people, if I was lucky, that would read it on occasion.

Yet it's become clear to me that actually quite a few people are reading my blog fairly regularly. According to the statistics tracking page, around 50 people view the page of each new post within a week after I publish it. Of course, 50 regular readers may not sound like a lot, not when compared to professional writers who's blogs have subscribers in the hundreds, and page viewers in the thousands. But I'm not discussing world events, and social trends, and things that everyone cares about. I'm just rambling about my life. And to think that there's somewhere in the range of 50 people that miss me, and who care enough about what I'm doing to sit down and patiently scroll through my long rambling posts about nothing of significance....well it's rather heartwarming.

And the responses I've gotten from a number of you, both publicly and privately, only serve to support this feeling. In the month since my post about the insanity of my arrival in India, I've received an incredible amount or reactions from people eager to share their feelings of amazement, concern, amusement, and of course love. And a I continue to be surprised myself every time someone asks me "When is the next blog post? We're waiting for the next blog post!". The apparent reality that not only are people reading these posts, but that they are in fact looking forward to them is one that I admittedly fail to entirely understand, albeit remain profoundly appreciative of.

And most incredible of all, is what writing this blog has become to me personally. It's become something of a lifeline that connects me to all of you, to my life back home. Without it, I think I would feel completely disconnected. But when I sit down to type a post, for an hour or so I completely forget that I'm even in Korea. Suddenly I am simultaneously relaxing in a hammock at Pennsic, having a beer with Derek and Tim, eating dinner with my parents, and sharing amazing stories with all of the many people who I love so dearly. I'm reminded just how many close friends I have, a number that astounds me truly.

Additionally, I've found that writing about my experiences helps give me a greater appreciation of them. It's funny, but being an expat, being on the other side of the world, quickly loses the glimmer that you imagine it must have. It quickly turns into...well, life. It becomes mundane, the status quo, and it's easy to forget that you're actually doing anything extraordinary. But when I write for an audience that still lives the life I left, I manage to gain a third person perspective on the things that I myself am doing. I find myself rereading a post and saying to myself, "Wow, it didn't seem that exciting when it was happening, but I guess I'm not exaggerating." (The exception to this would be my arrival in India, which really DID feel that incredible when it was happening.)

So yea, blogging has been good for me, and I am extraordinarily appreciative of the support I am receiving in regards to it. I am now no longer homeless, no longer jobless, and as I settle back down into a bit of a routine, I intend to start posting with a degree of regularity again. My goal, as before, is one post every Sunday.

So, when last we left our hero (that would be me), he (that is, I) had finally made it to Chennai, India, enduring and overcoming countless setbacks in the process. (Didn't I use this type of intro once before?)

India was my third visited country going overseas from North America. Israel was the first, and then of course Korea. Israel and Korea are both considered "developed" countries by whatever international standards seem to matter. India, however is not. It is usually labeled as "developing" because of the growth that it is experiencing. But this term, I think, misrepresents the truth of the situation. A vast portion of the Indian population is incredibly impoverished. I was not prepared for some of the things I saw, the way I observed people going about their life, the conditions that they inhabit. It was both fascinating, and depressing. It's not just that India doesn't yet have the facilities and physical infrastructure that we are used to in so called "developed" countries. It's that they simply don't have a system of organization to handle things we consider basic, such as trash collection.

This picture was taken on the side of the road. It is one of many such locations where people seem to just dumb garbage randomly. Emaciated dogs would pick through it looking for something edible. In the month that I was there, none of the half a dozen spots like this within a 5 minute walk from the ashram showed any signs of an attempt at garbage collection. Speaking of emaciated dogs....

But truthfully, this isn't surprising when there are people in the society who are so poor that they live out of grass huts that they managed to build in the midst of their more fortunate neighbors:

I certainly don't want to give the impression that my experience was entirely negative. These were just a few of the more shocking images that I saw on this trip. These are a few pictures that give the clearest indication of just how stark the difference is between an undeveloped country like India and life as we know it.

The Ashram, on the other hand, was absolutely gorgeous. Breathtaking even.

In fact there was something distinctly Pennsic like  to staying at the ashram. Well, a Pennsic without booz or cigarettes, without bonfires, drums, or dancing, where you wake up at 5:00 AM and go to bed at 9:30 PM... Ok so I realize that doesn't sound anything like Pennsic, and admittedly a large part of it had to to with the weather. It was 80 degrees and sunny for the majority of my time there, and when there were thunderstorms is was the warm kind of rain that makes you want to run around getting soaking wet stomping barefoot in puddles (which I did at every opportunity). But it was more than the weather, it was the communal aspect of things. It was the way everybody pitched in, either cooking, or washing dishes, or gardening, or making tools. It was the way walking around people would smile at each other, even if they hadn't been introduced. It was the way that if you were sitting by yourself, people would come up and talk to you, and try and get to know you. These were the things that reminded me of Pennsic (along with the distinctly August like weather), and in fact helped to give me perspective on what the most important aspects of Pennsic (and the life I would like to lead) actually are.

But, after a few days it became apparent...there was something missing too, something that made it distinctly not Pennsic. And at first it wasn't altogether apparent what exactly that was, though it soon became clear. There was something not quite right with the people. This is hard to describe, because as mentioned above, it was more or less a social quality that made it Pennsic like in the first place. But despite the communal aspect, and the overwhelming friendliness, the people, how shall I put this, were less....substantive. There was a shallowness that is altogether nothing like what we think of as shallowness. There was an emptiness of personality that was in stark contrast to the fullness of the life they led. They were all just so...spiritual.

And now we came to one of the greatest conundrums that I face in my rather spiritual life. I don't like spiritual people, or at the least I don't like people who have dedicated themselves to spirituality. Which is funny, because in many ways I have had, for the majority of my life, the single continuous focus of spiritual understanding. I have researched, studied, and participated in almost every major spiritual system, and a good number of the minor ones. I can hold my own in a debate (and have done so) with PhD's of both Philosophy and Theology. But perhaps a major reason for my having bounced around so much is that any system I get involved in, I quickly discover that I just don't really fit in with the people associated with it.

And whats even more extraordinary is that I have found that the very dedicated participants of pretty much every system are difficult for me to relate to in the exact same way! Like I said, it's a shallowness, but it's not a shallowness of them being obsessed with clothes or popularity, or whatever we usually think of as shallow. It's quite the opposite, in that their shallowness is derived from a complete lack of interest in anything material whatsoever. It's simply a lack of depth. The entirety of their existence revolves around The System and the tenants ascribed by it. They relinquish personal discretion, putting everything to the test of what someone else says they should judge things by. And this is infinitely frustrating for me, because it's not at all who I am, and yet I am undeniably spiritual, and so where does that leave me exactly?

In fact, my spirituality is based around the the concept that my own personal discretion is the most sacred thing available to me. Essentially, I am actually Agnostic. Agnosticism being the philosophical tenant not that "I do not know", as it is commonly interpreted, but that "I can not know."  This is echoed in the primary thesis of the philosophy of Descartes who basically said that the only thing you could ever know is that you are. This I am certain to be true. However, given that you can not actually know anything else, all you are able to do is believe. And belief is essential to life. Even if we can not know, we can still believe, and all of us choose to do so even when we mistake that belief for knowledge. Given that, I recognize that all of my spiritual thoughts are nothing more than beliefs that can never be known. Still, I chose to believe them, because after all, what other choice do I have? But I have come to hold these beliefs through the exercise of my own personal discretion. I only believe what I believe because I have weighed my beliefs against other potential beliefs and made a decision that I myself have found to be the most logical with regards to my own personal experience and understanding. This is the most that anybody can ever do. And I have an great deal of difficulty  relating to people who have sacrificed their own discretion in order to base their beliefs on the discretion of another.

I find that the majority of my friends consider themselves to be either Pagan or Atheist. At a glance these seem like very oppositional philosophies, but when thought of in terms of the encouragement of personal discretion, they are found to be remarkably similar creeds. Both are modern movements presented in juxtaposition to the (predominantly Christian) religious view of sacrificing intellectual independence to an exterior source of "knowledge". Modern Paganism is an incredibly open ended spirituality that essentially allows the participant to custom tailor their practice in whatever way they see fit, while Atheism is a philosophy that basically says, "Fuck you, I'm not gonna believe anything that you can't show me." I personally really appreciate the self-empowerment expressed by both of these philosophies, and this is why I predominantly associate with adherents to these ways of thought. Yet, with regards to Atheism I personally believe that there are aspects to the universe that can not be shown but only experienced, and with regards to to Paganism I find that more than anything it has mostly developed into a social counter-culture, and does not present the opportunity for any significant spiritual understanding. So where does that leave me? I'm a Spiritual Agnostic with mostly Pagan and Atheist friends. Yea....I'm not really sure what to make of that either.

All the same, the meditation practice that I learned and practiced while at the ashram is an incredibly valid one. To say that I can not relate entirely to the aspirants, or to say that I can not dedicate myself wholeheartedly to the system, is not to say that I gained nothing at all from my time there. In fact, I can now say with a higher degree of confidence then ever before, that I can meditate. I now know exactly what this means, and what it can do. I discovered realms of consciousness within realms of consciousness that are immensely difficult to describe with words. I obtained states of inner peace that I have never known before. So yes, I certainly think there is something to this method of meditation. I intend to incorporate it, in some respect, into my life from here on. But I can not say that I am a dedicant to this particular system. I can not say that I give myself and my discretion over to those who claim to be the masters of reality. I can not immerse myself in the social community of those that eat and breath this style of mediation. It just doesn't feel right. And as I said, "do what feels right" is the most sacred tenant that I follow.

So fast forward a couple of weeks. New home, new job, and to some degree, new perspective. I finally feel like I'm becoming accustomed to life here. When I came to Korea, part of the goal was to get away from the habit of living for the next event, waiting for the next party, or the next time I could have fun. I wanted to live a life where I could simply enjoy living, where the mundane aspects of life were something to be appreciated. I never managed to find that state of mind with my previous job, or in my previous living location. But this neighborhood is peaceful instead of dynamic, and this job is fulfilling instead of monotonous. And one week into it, I find that I can be happy simply doing what needs to be done. Maybe the meditations helps a bit too.

More details on the new life next week though. Also I plan to post a couple photo albums, either on here or on facebook, in the days ahead. Until then, much love as always.

        -Mongoose