Hm…

I’ve always been moody. Not as much as some, obviously; I don’t have bipolar disorder or anything. No, just moody. Nothing to whine home about.

My musing of the day is that perhaps my mood swings are the reason I find Buddhism and Taoism so appealing. It’s not that I don’t want to have emotions, it’s just that I feel better when my happiness is untarnished by depression. My favorite koan (if you haven’t heard it yet) is the one about the bowl.

A young seeker of the truth travels to a far monastary, looking for enlightenment from the wisest monk in the monastary. He arrives late at night, is shown to a room, sleeps, wakes, dresses, and eats breakfast. He’s so beside himself that he approaches the monk about joining the monastary still carrying his half-eaten bowl of rice. He prostrates himself at the monk’s feet and humbly asks when he can begin his training. The monk says, “First, clean your bowl.”

This is the one that sticks with me, the one I use at both ends of the spectrum. When I’m flying too high (too many projects going on at once, too many obligations, treating the people I love off-handedly), it helps; when I’m a bit low (like right now, to tell you the truth), it keeps me from going any lower. For some reason, it makes me laugh at myself.

Maybe because I spent so much of my childhood in fights with my brother Matt about the proper methodology of washing dishes. Any dishes thou leavest soaking overnight thou shalt do thyself, dickwad. And the time I spent washing dishes in college, giggling over some of the brilliant-but-disgusting creations and watching huges piles of jell-o get sucked down the rinse trough. And learning that there was only so much of a pit I could live with when I moved in with a gaggle of insane roommates (the kind of SCA people that make RPGamers look normal, eh?). And living with Lee, both of us of a similar degree of fastidiousness and laziness.

He’s been a little bit down, too. You know, I couldn’t tell you why.

Anyway, I just needed to blog.