Day 2-ish in workshop in VT

Even in pretend-land, time moves fast. But definitely in non-straightforward fashion. Yesterday was, again, chock full of activity and motion. In the morning, I was up pretty early, and read a bit, and then drove from the dorms to our working area in Brattleboro with another woman, a grad student in urban planning. She’s 25, recently out of school, working as good industrious people do, trying to find her next job. She seems earnest enough, straightforward enough. Yet, I have a sense of her as being a type. Not so much a person unto herself yet - but that's kind of how it is at the young adult stage. It is starting to get clearer what this truly means, though, self-identity. I think it means that you’ve committed yourself in total down a path of requirement.

What is that? What’s a path of requirement? In the past, you’ve been forced to do this and that, you’ve been swayed heavily by the winds of society and culture, and finally, now, you’ve reached a point where you must stand up on your own. You must work. You don’t necessarily want to do all the things required of you, but you will, and you actively do now. At that point, standing up on your own means nothing so much as making that decision, and deciding on your terms what you will do to stand, unbowed. And then, you do. And keep doing because you've made a commitment, and you must.

This is critical for people seeking a path, the Seekers. Parents can weigh like millstones around a young sapling’s neck, making it difficult to seek light and air. To continue the metaphor, if the field of saplings is close, other saplings crowd your branches, making if hard for you to grow straight and true. We are not trees, however, but moving, metamorphosizing people. That ought to be a word, metamorphose, -ing or –phosizing.

Anyway, snippets of thoughts from Vermont.