Mental Wanderlust

It has been quite awhile since I have written anything for a blog post other than the mundane and flippant.  Like any junkie, I can’t stay away too long.  But, what should I write about?  What interests me, and is anyone else interested in reading it?

I can’t say for certain, but I do know that there is a shared condition in many of us.  Perhaps we could call it “dissatisfaction”, or “longing for something more”, “pain”, “desire for simplicity”, or a host of other words and phrases.  I find that one word sums up my own feelings: wanderlust.

The dictionary on my Mac defines it as “a strong desire to travel.”  I think there is something more to it than that.  It is a desire to seek out the world, motivated by a sense of discontent, a sense that there must be something else out there.  I’ve had the pleasure of reading the blogs of many people who would be classified as “van-dwellers”.  People who finally had enough, and decided to hit the road.  One of my favorite, Cage Free Family (Link), reminds me that there is something else in life, something other than what we possess, or what our status is.

I’m not nearly as adventurous as they are, but, I believe we share the same spirit.  I believe many of us possess a wanderlust not of traveling feet, but of a traveling mind.  I like to call it curiosity, and it is what motivates me.

While reading the newspaper this morning, I came across an op-ed by David Brooks entitled “The Growth of the Formerly Middle Class.”  Now, this article isn’t about seeking something better in life, it is more of an observation of what many people are currently experiencing with the loss of jobs, security, and stature.  Near the end of the piece, he writes,

“In this recession, maybe even more than other ones, the last ones to join the middle class will be the first ones out.  And it won’t only be material deprivations that bite.  It will be the loss of social identity, the loss of social networks, the loss of the little status symbols that suggest an elevated place in the social order.  These reversals are bound to produce alienation…”

 Earlier in the piece he notes that,

“In times of recession, people spend more time at home.  But this will be the first steep recession since the revolution in household formation.  Nesting amongst extended family rich in social capital is very different from nesting in a one-person household that is isolated from family, and community bonds.  People in the lower middle class have much higher divorce rates and many fewer community ties.  For them, cocooning is more likely to be a perilous psychological spiral.”

I think Brooks misses something here.  This is a problem faced by most people.  Our social networks have taken less and less precedence to our work lives.  Indeed, people have a work-life that is their primary social outlet.  I’m not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, however, there is more to life than work.  I’ve known this for a long time, but often have a problem keeping my grasp on this reality.  Recently, for instance, I lost that grasp and spent two weeks in perhaps the most miserable state I have ever experienced.  Not, because of my actual job (though, I despise it so), but because I lost a hold on the reality of what is most important in life.

So, let’s all get a grasp on what is important.  Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write what is most important in your life.  For me, I found it to be the following: Good health, close friends, good friends, family, a warm place to sleep, possessing intellectual curiosity, an education.

The list goes longer and I won’t bore you with the mundanity of some of the items on it.  But the reality is that life is not work.  That, is therefore my focus for this site.  One month at a time, I want to keep my mental wanderlust.  Now, sure, this site will have personal stuff.  I’ll be moving into a new apartment soon, and needless to say, that is going to go a long way to having me settled and back into a routine that allows me to pursue my interests.  I look forward to the process of creating a den, a cave, or whatever word you want to use to describe the place that is where you are most comfortable, where you are just you, and can retreat to grok the world.