So, I haven’t posted here in awhile.  I have been busy.

Really, since July began, I have been very busy.  You see, I decided to venture into a new experience.  Working in a different country – not just for a couple of weeks, but for some months… and living in a different environment – becoming an urban dweller – in an apartment – no car – and it is nice weather, and then it snows, and then it gets nice – and there is a river nearby – really nearby – and a park – and trails – and a very diverse cultural environment – and work – and being away from home (and getting really homesick) – and getting a physical ailment and having to deal with it, when you physically depend on your body to help you out (and it decides to rebel) – and then you go – “shit, this is not funny.”  Yeah.  It’s like that.  And then things begin to straighten out.  After much acupuncture and stuff.  Good grief.  I think, “life was simple once.”  but that is a lie.  It never was.  Ever.  Not my life, at least.

Bringing back to the more positive, I am listening to music I haven’t really listened to in years.  I am avoiding having the evil television on all the time.  One can only take seeing “Bar Rescue” just so many times in a row.

Enough already.

So, sitting here in the country of my forefathers, but on the other side of that country, I am experiencing something different from what I had been doing…

Working and living away from home, in a different country.  I get homesick.  It presents a new challenge to live life in a different environment.  It isn’t bad, doing this, especially at age 60 (almost 61).  It is a new decade for me.  I realize that I don’t likely have that much time left on this planet, since it seems to go by so fast.  It also keeps my mind challenged… I have to work with myself not to slip into some sort of complacency.

So, here I sit, in another country, working – not necessarily always stellar, but I do have some interesting work…

But being away from my loved ones.  That fact makes me blue.

I want to NOT be doing things that are not valuable experiences –  you realize that you fritter away a lot of your life doing really meaningless things – and that is not mindful living.

You should make each nano-second a mindful one, but we are not trained to do this growing up.  We are trained to focus on meaningless stuff – as if it is a good thing, to “do meaningless (to us) stuff” to show some sort of discipline.  Horse-feathers.

I think that we will prove this to be wrong, one day.  People just say that their dedication to academics for the point of finishing something is meaningful.  Okay, that’s fine, for some people, but not for me.  I think “Jeez, if this isn’t meaningful or valuable – what’s the point?”

Okay, so it appears knee jerk or quirky – but, seriously, I think about it a lot before I form an opinion.  I get to a point, no, really, I get to a feeling.  I know when enough is enough.  It “feels” wrong.

So, if you do get to age 60, and life is really speeding up, and you realize that you might have 20 good years left (even less if you don’t take care of yourself) – you had better be spending it meaningfully.  Or else, you will maybe regret it later…  As you lay dying, you go “oh shit, I just frittered life away… and then you go – unh.”  Bzzzzz, you’re done.  End of story.

I don’t want to be like that.  Seriously.  I think that it requires some considering.  I just watch people.  I look at what they are doing to themselves sometimes and they are miserable.  I say, “what is going on here?”  Why are you (we) doing this stuff?  Is it good?  Is it meaningful?  Do you care?  You should care.  You should care a lot.

I guess, when I listen to this old music, it puts me in a reflective mood and I really think about the past, present, and future.

And I miss my dog.