I like visiting places like Peru, Cuba, Colombia, Italy, and India (have not gone to the last one yet!) I am sometimes easily bored by what others seem to love, but I can watch slow foreign films that others might fall asleep in front of and be fascinated. We are all spiritual beings whether we admit it or not, so being attuned to the divine and transcendent in others happens: sometimes this awareness is distracting in a world of Iphones, Ipods, sporting events, stock markets, and the daily tidalwave of material things that make our lives. I am part of all this stuff, but I long to get back to something more simple, basic, and centered. I love to get on my bicycle and bike for miles, or to go hiking in cool weather.

Random thoughts:
What is right; what is wrong? In our personal lives, we have latitude to do whatever our conscience tells us we must, independent of financial gain, job security, and to some extent social mores. In the professional world, the answer is lamentably more guided by self-preservation. How will it " seem" to my superiors, to my church colleagues... to my children, friends, parents... etc. if I speak MY truth? What if I get fired or demoted for doing what I think is best regardless of what the powers that be think? Will I lose my house, my insurance, the razor's edge of social standing as an employed person that separates me from the 17% out there hitting the pavement? For me, the answer has always been a cavalier "FIRE ME!" If in doing something that my moral and ethical compass tells me is just plain wrong, cowardly, or otherwise nonsensical for reasons that have nothing to do with the "greatest good for the greatest number" (John Stuart Mill?.... 1992 is a long time ago!) then F-I-R-E ME. I guarantee that the thrill of being fired for sticking up for my principles and displeasure is at least worth losing a house and having to move to France where I am also a citizen... and which is arguably a much more moral and sustainable place to live the rest of my life anyway. Of course I am lucky in ways some are not with regard to this conundrum: I am single: I have no children; I am currently in good health, I am a citizen of another country with a better social safety net, a moral health care system, and the ability to survive and thrive without a private automobile. I cherish these blessings, and my current ability to- perhaps for the last time in my life- live the existentialist axiom of free choice espoused by Sartre and others.

It does not really matter what. It matters who. The what is easy; the who is the hard part.