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rimrunnerSo three of my last four posts have been about stuff I used to do and haven't for three years now. I think I've gazed at that navel about long enough.
Some months ago I had a Facebook chat with an old friend from those days. He left the ATC well before I did, for reasons that might best be described as political. (Anyone reading this from that period probably knows who I'm talking about from that alone.) He's been in graduate school, and hit me up for some help with citations, which is, after all, the sort of thing I do professionally. And then we got to chatting, as you do.
At one point he said, "Isn't it amazing how much more time and energy we have for things like this?" We were both in master's programs, in addition to which I was working full time and had several projects in the fire.
And yeah, it kind of is. I never realized how much energy those festivals were taking from me until I stopped doing them.
So, yeah, I got a(nother) master's degree, wrote the first 130 or so pages of novel along with over a dozen short stories, read a ton, and have largely kept up that level of productivity even with the end of my sabbatical and returning to my day job. I'm participating in two different writers' groups, working with Mr. P to turn Wild Gods into a going concern, checking out a number of other events, and contributing in a limited, set-my-own-boundaries fashion to a couple of new festival events that are so much more in line with where my own spiritual practice is these days. Even my marriage has improved (though Mr. Darcy quitting a soul-sucking job that he'd come to hate had a lot to do with that as well. Folks, if your personal relationships are miserable, also take a look at what else is going on in your life. Marriage is not a bubble. Ours hasn't been miserable, but there were some stressors, only some of which had directly to do with our relationship).
Which isn't to say that I've given up what brought me to my spiritual path in the first place. While I remain agnostic at best concerning the reality of the entities that I treat as real in my interactions with them, I've concluded that some sort of practice is necessary to keep myself on an even keel. At this point some of those affiliations have wound themselves into my creative and professional life; last weekend, for example, I presented at this conference on the Dionysian in science fiction, and I'm contemplating turning my presentation into an article.
What is planted will surely grow, we used to say. In the past three years my writing, martial arts, and music have all improved at a rate far greater than they were before; I'm starting to write stuff that doesn't entirely suck, beginning to hold my own against my gung fu training partners, and if I'm not where I'd like to be yet with my chosen instruments, I can at least see how to get there.
So, I guess it's true.
Some months ago I had a Facebook chat with an old friend from those days. He left the ATC well before I did, for reasons that might best be described as political. (Anyone reading this from that period probably knows who I'm talking about from that alone.) He's been in graduate school, and hit me up for some help with citations, which is, after all, the sort of thing I do professionally. And then we got to chatting, as you do.
At one point he said, "Isn't it amazing how much more time and energy we have for things like this?" We were both in master's programs, in addition to which I was working full time and had several projects in the fire.
And yeah, it kind of is. I never realized how much energy those festivals were taking from me until I stopped doing them.
So, yeah, I got a(nother) master's degree, wrote the first 130 or so pages of novel along with over a dozen short stories, read a ton, and have largely kept up that level of productivity even with the end of my sabbatical and returning to my day job. I'm participating in two different writers' groups, working with Mr. P to turn Wild Gods into a going concern, checking out a number of other events, and contributing in a limited, set-my-own-boundaries fashion to a couple of new festival events that are so much more in line with where my own spiritual practice is these days. Even my marriage has improved (though Mr. Darcy quitting a soul-sucking job that he'd come to hate had a lot to do with that as well. Folks, if your personal relationships are miserable, also take a look at what else is going on in your life. Marriage is not a bubble. Ours hasn't been miserable, but there were some stressors, only some of which had directly to do with our relationship).
Which isn't to say that I've given up what brought me to my spiritual path in the first place. While I remain agnostic at best concerning the reality of the entities that I treat as real in my interactions with them, I've concluded that some sort of practice is necessary to keep myself on an even keel. At this point some of those affiliations have wound themselves into my creative and professional life; last weekend, for example, I presented at this conference on the Dionysian in science fiction, and I'm contemplating turning my presentation into an article.
What is planted will surely grow, we used to say. In the past three years my writing, martial arts, and music have all improved at a rate far greater than they were before; I'm starting to write stuff that doesn't entirely suck, beginning to hold my own against my gung fu training partners, and if I'm not where I'd like to be yet with my chosen instruments, I can at least see how to get there.
So, I guess it's true.
