Dragging us away from listening.

(from Journal on May 8, 199)

 I'm reading through old journals. Currently reading one from when I was dating Christine - taking a Peter Garret class. A fall semester. I was devouring books, taking millions of notes, thinking, writing tons, wishing I was writing more creative stuff, feeling confident about academia, vaguely worrying that I was losing touch with the common man. 

Now maybe I'm too much the common man? Went to a folk concert with Tim Pappageorge, Jim Horan and wife, and Ed Bualk and wife. Is this what I have to look forward to? Then, at least, did I have a strong passion for becoming part of the intellectuals. I wanted to know everything about Foucault and Nietzsche adn be teh star of teh department. Yet something happened soon afterward. I had ideas about writing articles for English Journal -- and I never did... thinking I couldn't pull it off. IBut I could have. 

Earlier today I thought: if we could only open ourselves to look and listen to the real world -- the colors, the birds, you'd be at peace. It's just a matter of ego and stresses and appointments that drag us away from listening. 

But tonight, lyingin bed, I feel like I'm approaching the edge of a canyon... without direction or passion -- not at peace, unloved, undirected, fishing for something.