Where to live, who to love, business, personal time

Joseph Campbell in 1974 Audio Lecture:

Now the problem that all of the great masters give us is that of finding the inward way and holding to the outer way. This is a formula that the old Sufis worked out in the following way: they spoke of wearing the outer garment of the law—that is to say, the order of society in which one is living—and wearing the inner garment of the mythic way.


Now in order to find the inner garment you have to take off the outer garment and let it go. There is a long season very often of inward turning this way, and throwing the world away.


But unless you can put the other garment back on again, you haven’t really come to the sophistication that lets you know that this is that, and that is this—that this outer garment is the outer reflection of the same laws and principles that you’re finding within, so that you should be at ease somehow in the two worlds. This is an old mythological story.

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My inward season is ending. I am putting on my outer garment. Like anyone else, I have to juggle the realities of self and society. But for me, many specifics of my life, what most people would anchor around, are up in the air:

1. Do I live in Austin, Chicago, or even India/Tibet? The next 2 months or the next 9 months?
   
2. Growing friendships and relationships takes time and effort, together. I have to make decisions based on who wants to spend time with me.
3. I own no car, I have been renting. This was partly in anticipation of moving overseas.
4. I have several new business ideas and projects underway... but this decision is intertwined with who I know and where I choose to live.
5. Visit my friends in Lake Havasu City and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Both cost and time considerations.
6. Visiting my father in Central Florida. I choose to spend the holidays here in Austin, but I want to visit my father in the next 2 months.
   
7. Financial considerations. Not all choices are financially practical. Going to India/Tibet is far more of an investment and harder to return from. Do I live cheap and share a place or get my own private space?
   
8. My health. Food allergies have been rearing their head the past 2 weeks and it has made me more irritable and tired. Being in North Austin away from a place to lay down (San Marcos) is a practical problem when I'm feeling ill. So far, I haven't been able to nail down a specific cause of this allergy. The good news is that it isn't nearly as serious as my gluten allergy was one year ago. I'm damn glad for the health I have now, but experience has told me to take these allergy symptoms seriously - no matter how minor.
   

I'm debating at the moment if anyone truly wants me in Austin. I have a couple really great friendships, but they are not filling my romantic needs. These friends will be there no matter where I go, I appreciate that.

As far as romance and dating... I don't want to be hanging out where I'm not wanted howling at the moon - irritating people. No person at the moment may share my romantic ambitions, but I feel I need to actively extend my hand. I am not of the school of thought that I should give up on what is in my heart. I do not feel I have a greedy heart, I feel I have one that is actively seeking.

I continue to feel the need to continue seeking a mutual partner in life's crime. However, I'm closing out the active hunting season soon. Partly I started this blog to acknowledge with self-awareness: I know I'm complex - which means difficult to most people. But to the right person, I hope to be wide open simplicity.