Earth Hour

I just spent the last hour with a square candle perched on my chest — reading.

In silent dim lit bliss, the candle and I respired.

A seemingly inbred San Franciscan humanitarian streak made it impossible for me to evade a promise I had made (mostly to myself, weeks back) about the powerful symbolism of following through with this one simple gesture (turn off all lights, electric devices, and yes ... even the computer) despite the fact that my present city (Boston) did not participate.

This gesture has got me thinking about the general concept of self-awareness. More precisely — a more encompassing organismic kind of self-awareness. As in, we are all in this bounded petri dish together and there's only so much agar to go around and it's wobbly and we're moving around way too much for anyone to stay firmly cultured and sustain any discernible growth.

Also, I am reflecting on my recent trip to Mumbai (Bombay: for you die hard British Rajists) and how in the midst of what, to the Western eye, seemed like a massively amplified cultural rave there was an equal amount of rabid attention given to the details of resource sustenance. I witnessed an awesomely synchronous interplay of almost 18 million people conserving electricity, food, water, fuel, paper, glass, tradition, dignity. Across all strata of the somewhat tenacious Caste System, this synthetic energy spared no soul — native or other. Beautiful really. The Maximum City at her brightest.

Anyhow, it is likely that you missed out on Earth Hour. Or maybe totally lapsed on the self-awareness thing lately?

So, take a moment. Dim the noise in your head. And be part of a conscious whole.

A Loose Induction

I don’t distinguish between life, reality, mystery, religion, being, soul, poetry. These are words to designate the unnameable. The poetic is the life of all that, feeling what those words try to say.

— Rafael Cadeñas, Anotaciones (fragmentos)

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For some reason, in this entry, I am pulled to formalize my first solo journey into the Blogosphere.

Not sure why.

I've often been accused of residing within some outwardly perceived definition of vagueness — kinda like wearing my soul on a sleeve made of spun sugar. If that sleeve dissolves, what happens to the substance of my expression?

Hmm. I guess that's what words like elusive, mysterious and esoteric are reserved for. Again, not a fixed answer. Obviously, at the moment, I have few answers. I'm no absolutist.

On the whole, I prefer life to reside mostly within flow. I am not observing the nature of how my foot obstructs the flow of a river, but rather wading in the dynamic interplay of water molecules infusing themselves with my being-ness while continuing on relatively unchanged.

Clearly many questions, w/r/t my blogging, remain:

What am I trying to achieve here?
Who am I talking to? Who will read this?
Why join the internet blog stampede?
And namely, what am I passionate about?

At the moment, I think this rings truest:

I'd like to try to finally externalize a very long overdue inner dialogue. I think this could be helpful. Disciplined. Honest. Enjoyable. Etcetera.

So, here goes ...