Another day with nothing to say...

Warm, humid, overcast today in New York City. It matches my mood pretty well: pensive, brooding, melancholy. I remember in college how a friend of mine saw me sitting in the cafeteria at lunch one day and told me I always looked so thoughtful. The difficulty is getting the thoughts to coalesce into something that might be meaninful to share with others.

Of course instead of staying with my thoughts and trying to unravel them a bit, I could just read emails or post on Facebook or occupy myself in any number of other ways on the internet. But that would not serve me in the long run. There are enough distractions in life without me going out of my way to create some. Not that I don't indulge myself in distractions often enough.

I hesitate to begin because frankly I am puzzling over the issue of privacy. It's one thing for me to use this blog to just talk about whatever is on the surface of my mind. But it would be another thing to divulge the real inner workings of my mind - to make myself vulnerable before the vastness of the internet. In one sense, it wouldn't be much of a big deal, since I don't think many people read this blog anyway. Also, God knows I have revealed myself in postings on Facebook and other message boards, sharing details of my life that few people know.

But in another sense, I think it would be the wrong thing to do. I know I am a guarded person in some ways with those closest to me. But ironically it seems easier to share some deep secrets in cyberspace, where those who will read it are at a distance. I think there is some valor in going the harder route and letting the truly important people into my secret world. And I also think it could be hurtful if those people were to read important things that should be shared with them broadcast impersonally over the internet.

So I think I will stick with the safe route. Not that I am not sharing stuff that is meaningful to me here. Over time, I hope to really get in a groove here and write some good stuff that people will really want to read.

Man, I need a shave. There was a time it seemed when I could get away with only shaving once a week. But now within a couple of days there is enough scruff to make it a dangerous proposition for my girlfriend to kiss me. Nobody wants carpet burns on their cheeks and chin! I suppose I just feel lazy about shaving - preparing the skin, making sure the blade has the right sharpness, cleaning up afterward. The reward is worth the trouble I guess; but within a relatively short amount of time, the smoothness of my newly shaven face is spoiled by new whisker growth already making itself felt. In short, before the day is out, I am scruffy once again.

It's like some cruel joke. Shave, shave, shave, and then I have to do it again. A Buddhist monk I know had an interesting take on this sort of thing. He was talking about eating, another thing we have to do over and over again. He said we have so much desire that can never be quenched. We eat and feel sated for a short time, but then our appetite returns and we want to eat more. From his perspective, the best thing to do is to train ourselves not to have desires.

I disagree with him. First of all, the training he is talking about takes more than a lifetime, and it is not easy. Secondly, I think that for the vast majority of people, it doesn't work. And third, I think the idea that we should want to rid ourselves of our desires presupposes that desires are not useful or do not serve a very strong positive purpose in our lives. Again, for most people that presupposition is not true.

Let's return to shaving for a moment. Here I am resisting the need to shave. It is as if, in a very small way, I am going against the current of the flow of life. For a time, being dirty and unshaven may be perfectly fine, as I slave away at this blog entry. But I will feel a sense of accomplishment by overcoming my resistance and shaving. The fact that I will have to shave again at some point in the future is immaterial. Buddhists talk all the time about being in the present - well, in the present, after finishing that shave, I feel fantastic. I don't need to worry about the next time I am going to have to shave. The only thing that is important at that moment is the pleasurable feeling of having a clean smooth face.

There are many other reasons I object to Buddhism. For example, I think it's too intellectual, too heady. I won't go into the other reasons at the moment. But they certainly have it right when it comes to placing emphasis on enjoying the perfection of where any of us is at this exact moment. I personally get in trouble because I am always worrying about all the things I would like to do that I haven't done yet. Sure, I will feel good once I have crossed all those tasks off my list. Then tomorrow there will be another list and so forth. For me the whole process can be full of inner excitement or pleasure: making up my list of tasks for the day, going through the list one by one with some discipline, getting to the end of the day when I can sleep next to my girlfriend, full of excitement that I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

Sure, I would like to make a mark, make a difference, to live a meaningful life. How I might do that is a topic for another post. But this daily drudge, the daily searching for fulfillment of our petty desires, can be the beginning, the first solid steps toward building the person who does important, groundbreaking things. At subsquent stages of the process, there may be more layers of distraction to peel away. But for now, this is where I am.