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At the Moment . . .

This section began its life as an occasionally updated commentary on what was going on in my world "at the moment." In the course of nearly two years (3/28/96 to 1/18/98), I managed 13 entries, not even one per month, reflecting as much my lack of commitment to that particular documentary process, as the pace of intensity that my life was going through. The point is, I was never too keen on using the web simply as an activity diary, a very pedestrian usage when it can be so much more.

So I've pulled all that, and we begin anew, on a totally different premise. The occasion is prompted by the need to relocate my site to another of the university's computers . . . and thanks be for the prod, for my life is still too pushed by the pace of general developments in it, and heaven only knows when I'd have gotten to this on my own. But for reasons that I shall explain in my first new entry (9/18/99), I'll not be focusing on what is happening in my world, but on my current thought and continuing growth. To be sure, this is generated by what is going on with me, but I'm freeing myself of any sense that I should need to account for that as a basis or backdrop, unless it bears on the understanding of what I write.

Thirty years ago, almost to the very day that I make this new opening, I began the journal of a whole new life (that I had not yet, as it developed, fully embarked upon). It was not so much an activity journal as one of thoughts and ideas, which became the seedground of the radical changes I was about to undergo. The coincidental allignment of that time and this, and the fact that the journal, then, was so richly a part of all the growth I was about to experience, has contributed to the conception of what this section is now going to be.

The Saturn return, when all of life may take a new direction, takes place at something just short of 30 years, as I recall. While this characteristically happens at age 29 (as it did, indeed, in my own life, with my marriage at that age), we can reasonably suppose that the span, regardless of age, denotes a parallel stage of being or development for the two moments in comparison. So I want to look, briefly, at that time in my life, 30 years ago, and see what it may say about today.

I was freshly in Seattle, having engineered an 'escape' from that marriage and a departure from California hardly two months earlier. It was not the first such stretch for some clear-headed freedom, and neither would it be the last. However, it may have been the most significant, as a periodic process that I seemed driven toward, as it constituted the major point of turning . . . toward a full reconception of what my life should be. And the journal was my way of thinking on paper, toward the revisioning that I sought.

The first entry in that journal was on 9/13/69, and it observes the rationale and vision:

"I always start diaries with such an auspicious flourish, and they usually last a few weeks or months and then fade away. But it's been many years since my last one, and we'll see if I've changed any.

"I think my approach is a bit different now. I intend this to be a chronicle of thoughts and personal development more than a chronology of activities. I'm trying to organize some of thse thoughts, as they are prompted by and relate to my reading, under a subject classification, but it only does part of the job -- and not too well at that because I tend to get methodical about it and it both interrupts and discourages reading somewhat. It's true, it prods thought a bit, but in another way it limits it by the simple satisfaction of knowing I have recorded the essential thought for future reference. It is also a fairly limiting framework for some of the more extensive written 'exploration' that I sometimes want to go into on an idea.

"I want to try and keep this as unstructured as possible because I find that is one of my major weaknesses -- getting boxed in by my own sense of organization...."

And I went on to annotate my inspiration for keeping such a journal (Eric Hoffer), along with a personal appraisal of Hoffer's work, which is more interesting now for what it says about me, at that time, than what it says about him.

I'm not sure I have even glanced into that old journal, in all the years since it was kept, and it is fascinating to see how the journal, itself, would suggest a line of inquiry that hadn't occurred to me before. I'd be off and running with it -- not always in the direction I'd follow today, but even that realization provides interesting reflection. Such a journal is an artifact of living thought as it truly develops . . . self-history in the very making.

One thing I want to do, in keeping this present journal, is to accept its incentive for getting that earlier one up on the site. It offers a wonderful view of that earlier stage of change . . . who I was at the time, and exactly how I was seeing the world I was in. I'd begin it right now, except that I am unusually and extremely crowded for time (as I shall explain in a moment), and it will just have to be put off for a bit. But I'll do it soon, as the parallelism provides a superb prod.

I'm not intending to begin life yet anew, at this point -- heaven knows, I've "been there, done that" trip to sufficiency -- but I am in the process of releasing myself from a quagmire of my own recent making: the activist entanglement of my more than three years of struggle with the Seattle Housing Authority, which had pretty much taken over my life until recent months. I can't pull clean of SHA concerns, just yet, because I'm in the depth/midst of a purely physical process of having to move from my quarters for the brief span of a week (but entirely -- furnishings and all!), while a renovation is being performed. But the pullback will resume . . .

I've been on it since early this year. It's been a low-point year for me -- the winter season of a 'septide' (a seven-year cycle). I saw it coming, and I know it's coming to an end, probably right after this approaching winter. And I intend to be poised for the next seven years, which I envision (regardless of any Y2K effects) as a deep immersion in the many aspects of life-reflection that will ultimately round-out my time here on the planet. I have a lot to dwell on, much to put to paper yet, and much more (for it includes that and what's already been written) to get up on this site. A living journal, strictly for myself (but open to sharing), will nicely set the pace.

So I have only the time for this brief explanatory entry, today. I shut my computer down tonight, and vacate the place, for a head-clearing stretch in Oregon, in another day or two. When I get back, I'll be purchasing a new iMac, and the latter months of this year will be busily occupied with doing the computer shift, from this old LC550, and working up a raft of century's-end Ripening Seasons issues . . . but I'll also be attending to the new vision of this particular section of the site. There should be lots to talk about, as the Y2K situation draws near and the panic sets in. I mean, when the 'bump in the road' is unforgivingly next month, and then next week, and the winter narrowing of optimism takes its toll on everyone's head . . . I think people will be mightily surprised by the societal change in tenor that we are about to experience.

I look forward to returning to a true journal format, for my regular morning use -- as regularly as I can manage it. It has been some long while since I pursued that indulgence. I'm even thinking of adding a laptop to my techno-repertoire, so I'll no longer have to contend with the downer aspect of being tied to a bedroom location for this exercise.