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Back to the Muse

It’s mid-January and I’ve spent the early afternoon huddled in an East Village coffee shop. An avenue away, on the Bowery, march the ghosts of idols passed: musicians, poets, philosophers whose words have served as the requisite muse that young people with even an ounce of creative yearnings dream about. As I enter the fourth [...]

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You Get Me Closer To God

While reading Henry Miller, I’m always amazed at how he uses sex not as a plot point, but something more akin to a time out. As Miller plods along through his memoir-as-a-novel catalogue – sex is prevalent throughout. Yet, the books aren’t about who he fucked (Cliff Note’s version: everyone), they are more about the thoughts and philosophies that are born from a carnal understanding of the world. Perhaps a more contemporary, a far more succinct, version of this would be Trent Reznor in Nine Inch Nails: “I want to fuck you like an animal….. You get me closer to God.”

The Un-United States of America that we live in today is centered around sex; some people call it religion; some people call it morality; but at the end of the day – it’s all sex. Who you marry. Who controls your body. What closets your trapped in. What pleasures are you depriving yourself from. Miller knew this. He captured these thoughts in so many places, but the passage from Sexus in my recent post makes me draw parallels to today’s world and the world of Miller. How many of us don’t know what we want out of life because we restrain ourselves? How many of us purge the Id from our lives in order to conform? And because of this restraint – in it’s myriad of forms, do we strive to destroy others that aren’t haunted by these phantoms. Are we simply smashing ourselves in this hall of mirrors that we call life?

If Miller can eloquently find the pressure points of human nature in the 1940′s, during the “Greatest Generation,” and they are so mirrored by today’s world – can we even claim progress? The more and more I read thinkers from the past, the more I see how things don’t change. That is both a comforting thought and one that unnerves me to no end….

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like a madman pursued by phantoms

Henry Miller – Sexus. Grove Press 1949.

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No Direction Home

Recently, I was told I was going to receive a special honor from my alma mater, and I started reflecting on my career, which ultimately started thinking about all the people that have helped me in my life. I can’t say that I am not at the benefit of some amazing people, but as I enter the fourth decade of my life – I realize I am without someone that can help me blaze the path that I want for myself.

There are few things that make me happier than working with college students and young professionals on their careers. It’s the thing that I look forward to the most in my day to day – to sit with someone and help them find their strengths, work on their weaknesses, and give them the confidence to succeed in whatever lies ahead. I think I take such pride in this because it was never afforded to me. I never received such mentoring from family, from friends, and very rarely from colleagues. My current employer is definitely a place where mentoring occurs, and as I navigate through my second year, I am looking forward to finding and cultivating those relationships that have always eluded me. I am an on search to find that person that I strive to be to the young professionals in my life.

It’s somewhat scary. My career has always been powered by my confidence. There have been many people around me that have been smarter than me. More creative than I am. More organized. Very few of them had my confidence. I, however, am at a crossroad. It’s not that the confidence has gone away. In fact, the confidence is stronger than ever. I just wonder where that confidence can be applied. What is the direction for my career? What are the next steps? What tools and weapons do I need as I step into a new arena? These are the questions that I want to ask that mentor that’s eluding me. These are the questions that this year will help me answer.

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