WHAT NEXT ????

Being a Capricorn, I’ve never had much fun with decisions. Astrologically-inclined friends and family have never been amiss to point this out to me. But as I’ve matured, I’ve found big, life-crunching decisions usually unravel themselves before me more easily than simple, stupid ones, such as choosing cheese or butter on that Pav Bhaji.


Now, I’m faced with multiple decisions based upon the self-assembling blueprint of my life, which has always seemed tumultuous but now seems torn anew between different places and different energy forces.


I came to Bangalore to reclaim myself, not to find myself, as many have done. I was found before and simply got off track, and I needed a place away from loved ones, in a place where the sun sets instead of rising over the ocean, to prevent myself from further derailment. And I have made excellent headway in doing so. For the first time in a very long period of self-absence I finally feel like myself again. I’m truly happy here among friends new and old, mountains and hills, rain and sunshine. Why, then, do I even consider leaving such happiness?


For most of those who come here to find themselves, Bangalore is a transitory place, fleeting at best, a place where memories are deposited and retrieved as quickly as raw materials en route to Chinese assembly lines. I do not feel this way. Every other place I have known was transitory: Delhi, which changes with every political ebb and flow; Pune, which eager souls can endure for only a year or two before burnout. Instead, I came here because I felt it was like home, and everything I have experienced thus far has seemed to justify that. Despite opportunities arising in other locales I sometimes never considered this move to be temporary, just sort of a mental repositioning. Now, with my departure imminent to face those other opportunities, I worry that I am leaving exactly the sort of thing I came to find to return to exactly the sort of thing I meant to get away from. I never doubt that I can find opportunities wherever I may be, and while I’m not one to burn bridges, it seems fitting that this is one of the two places where I may belong right now.


There are many decisions to make in the next few days, but one thing bears mentioning: everyone here who is not from here has a story, a story for how they ended up here. When leaving felt so certain, I thought my eventual return would not be a story worthy of bearing repetition. Now I feel like I finally have my story.


On another point, someone shared a terrific insight with me today - lots of insights, actually - but one specifically relates to an earlier post of mine: why are the very young and very old the easiest and most interesting sort of people to talk to? The answers lay within their respective souls and alignment with the cycle of life; the very young are closest to birth, the very old closest to death. Thus, they have both the most insightful and innocent of all of life’s observations.