Transition Week

I've fallen into a rhythm this week—anything that could be a rhythm. It's a transitional rhythm.

I've been back home at Maryland ("home") for about a week now. The familiarity of it all was palpable. I had grown up in these rooms. Many memories were tangible—old, leatherskinned journals containing secrets. IKEA lamplights that I had hung and left there for 5+ years. It's funny to think that orange tends to appear very often in my design-related projects. My entire room was painted like my designs—black, browns, oranges, and luminous, rice-paper lamp tans. All warm colors.

I've started reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Appropriately, probably, since his intention is to form a phenomenology of the house. I'm keenly interested. I liked his quote that states that artists are phenomenologists by nature. It makes me want to read up on what phenomenology actually is. I know enough to have a feeling about it—I don't know enough to have a definition.

When I came back from Arcosanti I hit the ground running. This week was not a vacation, nor is the next coming week. Proteus Creative saw a partial launch right before I left (check out the site if you haven't, http://www.proteuscreative.com), just so something could be up there. I've been since working on the full version of the site, which is coming along nicely. The full version will probably be up by the end of this week. Of course I already want to redesign it. I'm frustrated by my lack of scripting skills—I don't want to be dependent on other people's plugins for jQuery anymore, which is why I will be learning Javascript and AJAX—so I can build my own intuitive web interfaces from the ground up.

But even with all that, I've learned that there is a rhythm to the day. Like music. There is the upswing in the morning. I look forward to the smell of coffee, the cool air, that top of the world feeling—the feeling where you're looking forward to everything that will happen in the day. Salvador Dali once said that he would wake up with a feeling of ecstasy in the mornings, jumping out of bed to see "what this amazing feat this character, Salvador Dali, will accomplish next!" I'm not quite that… egotistical? But I do see enjoying progress in my work. The fulfillment of art in its completion, is the completion of art itself.

But I need to work on the nights. Because I'm such a focused personality, I need time to relax. Usually this comes in the form of playing video games, which I've finally gotten sick of. Not because I don't like video games. But because they, really, don't relax me—they allow me to concentrate on something else. Something other than all the things I want to accomplish in a day, or a lifetime. But for the amount of relaxation they do give me is kind of a game of decreasing returns. I'll play for hours until I'm tired, then go to bed. Then wake up in the morning—but I won't feel refreshed.

So I've decided to take up reading. It's only been a few nights, but reading Gaston Bachelard has been a lot more fun—really—then playing games for even twice the amount of time. And I love philosophy. I always intend to read more of it, but never do. For me, philosophy really is the engine that drives art, science, culture, writing—everything. Philosophy is a powerhouse, if you understand it and can see how it can be applied in practical ways. I just lack the foundational knowledge, personally speaking, to fully grasp all of it in its full intent. So picking up the habit of reading (and doing so with intent!) is two goals at once. I want to make it my way of relaxing—the way I calm my brain, yet can still allow myself to remain focused on something that is not work.

Writing is similar. Journal writing, I mean. I'm starting to pick up that habit again, though it's stop and start. Same with yoga. Yoga in particular, and its offshoot field for me, Aikido, are both things I want to concentrate on more steadily once I get down to Tucson. They are more pieces in the puzzle I want to fit together in making the transition to Flam Chen.

I'm still very intent on it. This week has just been the thick of things. Realizing how much of a cliff I'm jumping off, yet considering the scenarios again and again, comparing my intentions, my expectations, the realities, the possibilities, what I can give, what I can get out of it—I always come back to the same conclusion. Which is why I haven't wavered.

Socrates said: "The mark of an educated man is the ability to entertain a possibility without accepting it."

I think education, if it were actually education, would account for a lot of the personal conflicts in the world. Misinterpretations and so forth—being willing to entertain possibilities without accepting them—realizing that you don't have to commit to them by entertaining them.

But that is part of the good, solid decision making process. And I've not done all this on a whim. I'm very sure of myself—yet completely open to what may come. I have goals, but not expectations. It's a fine balance, a delicate balance. But if you can achieve it, it is a wonderful feeling.

The night comes.

It's only Monday. I leave on the 26th.

I have reading to do.