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First drafted in the summer of 1996, on Kirsten's sailboat, Ventura Harbour
Somehow I feel inclined to look into my past. Sometimes patterns emerge.
I do not have an exact image of what I want to be doing as a career--probably, I think, because it does not commonly exist. I do, however, sense a path I could follow which will guide me to this unknown vocation. The path, as far as I can see from my current vantage point, runs straight down the middle between Art and Science, somehow maintaining a balance between the two extremes. Thus, it might meld computer programming with poetry, cosmology with music, or bla bla bla.
My ideal vocation must be intellectually, emotionally, and spiritualy stimulating. My idea of an ideal vocation will include the following things: 1) it must somehow establish a sense of improving the world through as many means as possible. This should, above all, include helping people directly, quite possibly through quality education in the humanities. On a more personal level, this might simply express the all encompassing power of compassion. It should also include delivering positive communications to the masses, such as published poetry, essays, or books, or quite possibly through more modern meduims, such as hypertext or multimedia publications. It may also include, contributing to, and broadening the scope of our scientific knowledge of the world, either through research or innovation. I feel, though, that such a contribution would be established somewhere in the fringed, grey zones of modern science, more near quantum theory and metaphysics than concrete empiricism--possibly within the realms of cyberspace or artificial intelligence. 2) Such a vocation must allow me to pursue projects with almost complete independence. Such a standard will immediately remove the notion of working for a major corporation or dogmatic institution of any sort. Aside from being a completely independent enterprise, the nearest I could come towards any institution would be majorly academic, such as a university or college. I would also prefer extended amounts of time away from the workplace, such as working from home through a computer, working abroad, or having summers off to do exactly as I please. The work environment must be intellectually active, demanding constant learning of new material, creative intervention, and an ability to share information with others who are interested. 3) this vocation must somehow, above all else, fulfill the ineffable spiritual longing within myself, towards wholeness and a sense of symetry; it must include the discern of my major intellectual interests and my spiritual pursuits. It must assist me in reaching for the enigma within myself, and the enigma of the human condition. It must glide delicately down a single path which weaves together the disciplines of Art, Science, and Mysticism--into a single, undefined medium. It must continue to ask the big questions, and possibly provide even bigger ones. It must acknowledge the great transition humanity is entering into, strive to bring clear understanding of the transition, and run parallel to this transition, somehow providing a quality contribution to it, which may help to ensure that human evolution progresses in a positive way.
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