The many boat trips and sunny days, countered with many more rainy days, sprouted a need for change within me this summer. Our minds can be flickering and require change all the time, so I questioned myself how much of this change was my mind’s idea and how much was actually needed. After contemplating, I felt I was done with the purely administrative work and was up for a new and more creative challenge. As such, I will be changing jobs from the first of November. I’ll be working for an investment firm which is part of a big Dutch pension fund, and who has as one of its core values sustainability.

This summer I also spent time reading letters from the Roman philosopher Seneca, a stoic. He draws the reader into his way of looking at the world and tells how not to be drawn into the masses but distancing oneself without becoming a hermit. He almost sounds Buddhist in his urge to relieve oneself of desire.  Perhaps his writing also affords this because his way of thinking is very accessible for the modern mind while still being concise and multi layered. In Hindu texts, I also find myself drawn to the mystic, short and poetic paragraphs that speak of a life where the mind is peaceful but life also blissful. Being a rich Roman, perhaps he yearned less for a blissful life or thought a peaceful mind would be bliss in itself. Seneca provides, in my opinion, the first steps towards a more cultured life, one towards the Hindu Upanishads also point.

Ganesh entered my house this summer as well. The deity was given to me by close friends and like last time, he appeared again in a time of transition. Although as Vaisnavas we do not separately worship Ganesh, we honor his presence and his power to remove obstacles on the path of devotion. I’ve regarded his appearance as a holy event and taken it to mean that I should not fear any obstacles. Of course this is always personal interpretation, and my friends will probably say he entered my house because they bought the statue.

Lastly, being on a spree for reflection, it was interesting to note one of Kottke’s recent posts on daydreaming from the Boston Globe:

“After monitoring the daily schedule of the children for several months, Belton came to the conclusion that their lack of imagination was, at least in part, caused by the absence of “empty time,” or periods without any activity or sensory stimulation. She noticed that as soon as these children got even a little bit bored, they simply turned on the television: the moving images kept their minds occupied. “It was a very automatic reaction,” she says. “Television was what they did when they didn’t know what else to do.”

Without trying to sound like being on a constant anti-television crusade, I do wonder why don’t we occasionally just sit down, stare at a white wall and let our imagination speak?

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