never know when it will hit you

Yesterday, in the monodrom tone of being a cog, a spark went off reminding me of life before and after cogdom. Once, long ago and far away, I lived and worked in Haiti -- a place of beauty and turmoil that forever uproots and changes you. Life there beat me up and stole innocence I didn't know that I had left (I mean, you can only be so jaded right?) Anyways, for the past year, I have tucked these memories out of my mind to someplace even I didn't know where they were. Until yesterday. I recieved a phone call from a man who is traveling to Haiti and wanted some advice about what to do. It all came back like a flood, gushing out of my mouth before I knew how to stop it. I even felt that twinge in your throat and eyes that tells you, "I'm being fricken emotional here."

I didn't know that was left anywhere in me, but apparently it was.

I think this blog would be so much more interesting to read if I were still in that life. Running around on the back of pickup trucks hauling computers through the jungle to a fishing village somewhere in the mountains of the carribean. I mean, how can I compete with that building databases in the midwest -- I think the point of cogdom has been made here.

Life, I suppose is full of trade offs. History teaches that. Adventure traded for stability, freedom for security and onward. But we all have our limits in both directions. No one can live without a certain amount of freedom or security. So you define your limits and live within them. Sometimes life pushes you beyond those limits, and I suppose that's when you grow or you stretch your limits. I'm planning my next adventure. Well, not planning per se. I don't have any concrete thoughts about where I'll go or what I'll do. But in the sense that I am preparing myself to head back out to the wide open spaces where I belong. I took these jobs temporarily to gain a measure of finacial stability and freedom, but my eyes are scanning the horizon -- waiting -- knowing I have something out there that will again call me.

My friends are all having babies. All babies, no weddings. I'm a bit old fashioned in that I think children should be raised in stable homes with parents who are commited to each other. Our generation wasn't, half of us were brought up through divorces. I suppose that's why we don't think about marraige as the foundation of family. From a sociological / anthropological viewpoint this transformation in our socity in so interesting. From the dawn of humanity we have had ceremonies for passage of rights / the foundation of family and the tying of kin but these traditions, so important for thousands of years are disappearing. I can't fully believe that they are dissappearing though, I would imagine that they are being replaced with new traditions, new rites -- but what are they? What are we doing to signal ties of kinship? I am curious.