separation

michele asked me, if i were a vegetable, what vegetable would i be. at first i thought "eggplant," but changed my mind, because i like to eat eggplants, not be one. i told michele that i'd be stewed (or any processed form of) tomato. processed tomatoes have higher lycopene value than raw tomatoes, and i was all about delivering high nutritional content even at the expense of getting my ass fried, i said.

do you sometimes feel as if you're going through the motions of life, and you are observing yourself going through the motions, as if you're watching a multi-volume movie? "now that this stage of her life is maturing, what will the next stages be?" since the most recent life event for me has been the career change, i've been using this context a lot to draw conclusions about what's happening in my own search for meaning. having experienced and struggled with events at the previous employer, in a relatively short period of time, i had to change my mind about always wanting to work for someone else. but that change of mind came instantaneously, just like what motivational speakers claim about "changing your life in the blink of an eye."

what makes one situation amenable to instant mind-shifts, while another situation so recalcitrant? insecurity, or fear, for example, is recalcitrant to instant mind-change. even when i realize, "this is not the truth, this is coming from fear and/or insecurity," i still take many days to "get over" an internalized mechanism. internalized voices and coping mechanisms take years to become integrated, such that these often feel like seamless selves, as deeply woven into our psyche as all the organelles within each and every cell in our body.

when cass and i were aboard a plane some time ago, and we were descending, we could see emerging civilization manifesting as grids of houses and roads. cass found it incredulous to fathom sometimes, to imagine how each of those tiny grids holding individual lives that have their own stories.

as we continue along this civilization, we've become more and more separate. not only have we separated from the "higher power" (which ever higher power any of us subscribes to), but we've separated from our families, our friends, ourselves. we even separate our "personal life" and our "work life." there was a time when a farmer was a farmer in profession and in person, when a teacher taught not only in schools, but in every day life. and as we become more and more separate and compartmentalized in the name of individuality and differentiation, we become less and less connected with what we seek.