2008 began for me in London with friends and the woman I was going to marry. \u201c<\/span>Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance, everybody thinks it\u2019s true<\/span>\u201d \u2013 Paul Simon.<\/span> London wasn\u2019t good from the get-go, but it only seemed to worsen in the new year.<\/p>\n \u201cI envisioned you wearing your long black coat walking up the steps of a museum but I\u2019ve changed that mental picture to you living in a ghetto and cooking noodles in a small dirty kitchen with a bunch of dirty people all waiting to take a shower.\u201d \u2013 in an email from my friend Kristy in MT.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As the year started off, my studies stumbled and my relationship with Kelly grew strained. It\u2019s hard to describe the relationship over the next six or so months, but suffice to say things didn\u2019t work out<\/span>. It felt like the greatest heartbreak of my life, in part because I had put so much emotional stock into things working. The lesson: keep eyes wide open, even in love, to not be seduced by a future that might never come<\/span>. And take it slow. Life is not a race.<\/p>\n I was reminded of this recently while talking with a friend \u2013 my premarital counselor in fact \u2013 about Heidegger and the Nazis<\/span>. He wanted to defend Heidegger\u2019s Nazi sympathies by saying he was too wrapped up in the promises of a bright new day and the philosophical power he would wield in the third Reich <\/span>to see the red flags. He was, essentially, blinded by his ambition. Thus, my friend reasoned, perhaps he was morally free of fault. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n I too became blinded to the red flags and warnings around me \u2013 perhaps both of us did \u2013 and rushed too fast, too far. I had to suffer the consequences when reality proved to be quite unlike the imagined future. Morally at fault? I think so. In Aristotelian terms, I <\/span>(we?) lacked <\/span>prudence<\/a>, a key virtue for living a good life<\/span>. In Buddhist<\/a> terms I think I allowed ignorance and attachment too great a hold in my life. In any case, these things happen. The key is not to run away, deny them, or dwell too much, but simply to see them for what they are. As in the life of the Buddha when Mara would appear, Buddha would say \u201cI see you, Mara\u201d and Mara (representing greed, aversion, and ignorance) would disappear.<\/p>\n My studies similarly stumbled over these months and eventually I took an extended leave of absence on them, ranging from late February through September. Happily I did get some work done in that period and continue to eek my way toward the ever elusive Ph.D<\/span>. Along the way I was given a good job back here in beautiful Missoula, Montana, with my own office overlooking bits of campus and nestled up against a mountain where deer stroll by each day.<\/p>\n I have found my Buddhist practice again (which was suffering under the stress and chaos of the first half of the year). I am back at my studies. <\/span> I have a wonderful girlfriend. I have wonderful friends, wonderful family\u2026<\/p>\n Some noteables from \u201908: (In roughly chronological order, with additions as I think of them)<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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