On Seeking

My son and I are reading Herman Hesse's Siddhartha now. Of all the books valuable to humanity, this one - I pronounce to my child, holding the book up to the sun - will last. The story of how a man accesses his deepest inner being, the place of complete joy and serenity, is an eternal story. All of us know we possess this; how, then, do we live from it?

I find today that I have missplaced my journalism notebook, a fine, thick purple square made of elephant poop and given to me by my mother. I will likely recover the book. The book contains notes from the interviews of yesterday.

I noticed that yesterday became a turning point for me. I love this work; I always did, and the way I do it now is so much better for me than when I was a journalist for newspapers and magazines. Back then, I sometimes asked the questions my editors wanted to know. Today, I ask the questions I want to know. What I love about my projects in particular is this: projects like ReadySteady2012 are great equalizers. I interview anyone for this project; in the past, working for newsrooms and magazines, I'd interview just a few "regular" people. Now I tiger out, interviewing everyone. I have a goal of interviewing 25 people a day; that's a tall order and so far I've not made it. We're looking at a few minutes after five in the afternoon now and I haven't interviewed anyone at all. The entire day has been about mothering myself first, for an hour a so in the early morning, and then mothering my 9 year-old.

This morning, I awoke after reading Siddhartha last night. The cedar wood on the wall glowed pink. That's always a wonderful sign! I awakened my child, telling him: "Do you remember what Siddhartha was talking about? Do you remember that passage about inner serenity? I guess that must feel like this, all the time, even when someone is upset with you, even when it's raining."