Belly of the Whale

ENMESHMENT


I came to a powerful realization today: I am dependant; I am “enmeshed”—a word Wendy taught me in the fall. But now, for the first time, I see it, though maybe I have ignored it for a long time. Let me back up. I don’t mean “enmeshed” in the way Wendy did exactly: a man and woman being psychologically entangled: personalities, behaviors, ect., till selfhood itself is confused. I mean that I am psychologically dependant on my society of friends as a vent from boredom and loneliness; I procrastinate the things I should be doing by trying to medicate myself with conversation—often to little educational advantage.

I take Widge on walks and scan through me phone list to find someone to call; sometimes it doesn’t much matter who, preferably a female. I spend vast amounts of time alone in thought—which is good, but I need to continue, to push forward because I have so much more to do.

There is a subsidiary issue as well: I fear I have forgotten how to relax. This fall was such a tour de force of endurance; now, on vacation, I am persecuting myself for mulling around and not being more productive. Come on! Take a breath for god’s sake.
Perhaps this is another issue altogether, but I feel it is entwined somehow. My concern is my dependence on my friends. I wonder how long I have been this way. I think this need is exaggerated by my personal turmoil; I think we need compassion more in time of difficulty.

I know this is a normal, even nature, human condition, but for me it won’t suit. Soon I will be leaving everyone for a long, long time. I don’t want to be elsewhere thinking and missing everyone I have left behind. So it seems I need to start weaning myself now.

I’m not sure if I have ever yet described what I wish to do in the next twenty years of my life: My Dream. I will sketch it here briefly, but be warned: *Everything is subject to change. Nothing stays static. This is the start, the third draft so to speak of many more to come. Here goes…


THE DREAM


This summer I awoke from a dream where I was struggling in a storm at sea. I woke up as if from a nightmare, but it was magnificent; I was captivated and realized that I was still awed and afraid of the sea; I didn’t know it the way I do the mountains. At that moment, lying on my mat in Kathmandu, I knew: I knew I had to sail and travel and work and struggle. For week I had been writing a proposal for a Watson Scholarship—from there I would teach lectures, write a book of philosophy and then become a professor.

Now, in that moment, I knew that was all up in smoke, at least for the next twenty years or so. A battle that had waged in my mind, a polemic between the scholarly world and the visceral world, was finally concluded.

As the day passed and I sat, drinking chai. I realized how everything I had done, everyone I was could culminate in this one dream, this singular expression of myself. Sparks of creativity flashed through the synapses of my brain: I could sail around the globe, see new places and peoples—I could write stories, novels about them and my experiences there. Amazing things always happen when I travel. I could climb unnamed peaks and pass the arctic circles; I could fish and dive and eat coconuts on the shore of a deserted island. I would write about it all.

Of course, all the while I could be reading, further educating myself, preparing myself to write more lucidly the philosophy I have been conjuring for the last ten years now. I want to give it time to mature. I want to know my field. Traveling can only teach me more about the universality of religion, philosophy, mysticism, and spirituality.

But how to fund such an endeavor? More creativity I reckon. Do I go alone, do I catch rides and work on other people’s boats? Do I team up with a rare friend whom would be interested in such a quest? These questions and more have been my quandary for the last six months.

Progress has come in the most unexpected ways. At present I am making arrangements with certainly one—and likely another friend, a hiking buddy from the A.T. The irony is that he actually emailed me…with a plan strikingly similar to my own. This synchronic world is never ceasing. The three of us are looking at boats; we are talking about plans and timespans. Initial funding is coming; Ideas for self-sustained financing are coming—lots of brainstorming is all that can be done at this point. After I graduate I will pursue these ideas in earnest to see what can be.

We want to sail, to climb, to adventure and explore. We want to live simply and sustainably. We want to work with the boat and sea and land. I want to write. Soon I will have a website to market our wares: this blog will continue, a photogallery, itinerary, essays, nonfiction, expeditions, tracking map, nonprofit charity work—the options are all but limitless.

Not all will work; the plan is to find out what will. But I’m going. I am going to sail and write and travel—period. How it all will come to pass is still a shadowy affair, but my god, what a pleasure: Dreaming the dream itself is a joy. The realization of it will be both a great suffering and a triumph.

When I wrote earlier about a daemonic version of this dream, something that has been haunting me, I meant that, as I work toward this goal, something seems missing, or I feel like something is going to surface that might change the direction of this dream significantly. Maybe not, but I feel there is a high card that is yet to be pulled from the deck. Time shall tell.

These are very special and exciting days. Amidst my resent melancholy, life has never been so magnetic and alive. Come May, my whole world will shift. I will likely move to California, San Francisco or Santa Cruz to get back into the sailing world. I am rusty and greatly under-experienced. I still have so much to learn.

I would appreciate words from anyone willing to give them: ideas, doubts, suggestions, encouragements, experience, just a friendly hello would do nicely.

Email: freejonah@yahoo.com
Home address: 524 N. Pattee St.
Missoula Montana,
59802 USA
Phone: (406) 360-6966