A Mirage in the Most Obvious Place

As fun as it has been spending my time bike riding and lifting weights and reading books on esoteric modern subjects and watching independent movies and listening to independent music, I cannot help but think that there is a fork in the road available just ahead. I am coming to the conclusion that the simple and absolute benefit of all these things is an illusion.

How many of them will I remember? Certainly, the book I am reading on consciousness ("Consciousness: An Introduction", go figure) is fascinating, but I am absorbing frighteningly little of it. There simply aren't enough memorable ideas to hold together a narrative, which is how we are most apt to learn. Instead, there are isolated pockets of highly interesting, memorable studies that have been done that unfortunately do little to clarify the most important overarching ideas by themselves. Usefulness is simply an illusion if we forget a book when we put it down, so what use is this one to me?

Tonight I am wondering, how many of the pursuits I've found - so easy in concept - are similarly illusions from which I will receive no ultimate satisfaction?

Tools and Determination

Quite simply, the more sophisticated the world gets, the more success becomes a matter of knowing about, understanding, and utilizing what already exists over the determination of blind creation. To the contrary of our intuition and what we have been taught, the determination of creativity is often just a set of blinders. Everything has been pursued, you cannot hope to be terribly original unless you stand on the shoulders of giants.

Such a trend is irreversible; so, what are the long-term implications? What happens when the world is a post-consumer economy? How do we finance the decades that lead up to each of our few moments of singular contribution to humanity?

The Gloaming? (a cycle maintains)

I am recently fearful that I am entering a lull; or worse, a hard stop. School had just finally become comfortable to me when I broke free (by natural causes, at least). For obvious reasons, my work life feels like a resumption of some past - and inferior - existence. What am I to do with myself? I have tried to bury myself in books and movies (to ultimately bury myself in ideas), but where does the time go? How long have I been reading this goddamn book on consciousness? How many guided tours can one man lead into Glen Canyon? Will even one of Calvino's short stories approach the brilliance of If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...'s vivid, feet-on-the-ground-head-in-the-clouds fantasies?

Nothing can happen fast enough. My drive to improve, refine, eliminate excess itself needs refining. I get frustrated at the time it takes to drive to work, although there is nothing to be done about it. I can't save money fast enough. The other day I was mildly annoyed at the thought that I had to put in for PTO to go on a trip, and I finally thought to ask the question: What priorities have gotten confused if the chance to go on a vacation has come to feel like a liability?

I need to find simultaneity between the goals that I have made opposite through my own attempts to engineer my behavior: focus and relaxation. Advice welcome.