I decided to take a peek at my google analytics the other day, and I discovered that by far and away the most popular post on my site over the year to date is one I'm actually rather proud of: Me And Maslow's Pyramid of Human Needs Down By The Schoolyard. Almost 1000 people have seen that so far this year. Even assuming half of them were robots (and hey, robots need philosophy too), that's still immensely gratifying.

Its no secret I've been burning the candle at both ends lately. When I come down to SF it tends to get worse, feeding my workaholism. Even though this is ostensibly a thriving cosmopolitan metro area, I really have no life here, and with an office it's easy to stay at work to the point where coming home is just a trip you make to sleep before getting up to do it again. It reminds me of the MFA days in a way, or college. Any of those times when I was doing stuff for 16+ hours a day and having no sex.

Not that I'm complaining. Coming home late and hungry and unable to find a can-opener to make myself some tuna salad notwithstanding, I'm a ways away from the point where this pattern really generates any kind of meaningful irritation or negative response. Indeed, for as long as things can be kept in the power curve -- never forever, but what is? -- this isn't a bad way to exist. It makes me productive and relatively happy w/feelings of accomplishment, etc, and possibly even provides good grist for later milling when time is less tight.

And still, I can't help but feel like something is slipping past me here. I mean, the impending birthday is probably driving these feelings, sure, but I can't shake the sensation that I'm whistling into oblivion. I can't help but note the toll my current pace of activity (and past times of uber-business) put on my existing relationships, the massive impediment it poses to forming new connections.

To put it another way, I've never fallen in love in the midst of a workaholic bender. I've never even come close, to the best of my recollection. I've generally been frustrated and lonesome. It's a startling and embarrassing admission of mortality, but apparently my own tender human flower needs time and space to unfold. Who would have thunk it.

Back in March in Boston, I shared a meal with my friend Kate, and she told me about a dinner party at which the initially-suspect hostess (a psychiatrist or psychologist or some other consciousness manipulator) orchestrated the initial chit-chat around a series of questions designed to lead to meaningful table conversation. It turned out to be quite a winning program. One of the questions asked -- and one we discussed as quite an illuminating query if one takes it seriously -- is that of "what is it really that gets you out of bed in the morning?"

Whether you're one who'd rather stay in bed, but you're coaxed/driven out by some feeling, or the type who just can't stay put, or even someone who's depressed and feels like they'd just rather call it off for a day, we all rise and meet the world at some point. Why? What is it that prompts or provokes us to expend that human effort? What is it that fuels our first conscious acts? It's a fascinating question to ponder, and a revealing one to share.

For me the gut reaction, and one I don't love to be honest, is that there are things and people that count on me. Shit will get fucked up if I don't get out of bed. There are many other amazing reasons to love being alive, some of which I feel from time to time, but that's what that causes me to rise and meet the day: responsibility and obligation.

Now, I can spin this as a positive thing, and it's arguably not a bad character trait to be responsible, to feel a sense obligation, noblesse oblige even. Still, in my heart of hearts I feel this is evidence of a huge problem for me. While I clearly do have a sense of obligation, and it works, and I can appreciate how responsibility figures large into the larger arcs of life, I don't really believe that this is a sustainable state of things for me personally.

For as long as I've known myself, I've been motivated by my passions and ambitions. While those are clearly still in play, I feel they're increasingly dulled, sublimated, subsumed under various auspices. My starry eyes are all but extinguished, my grand sense of ambition whittled down to positive fiscal growth. That's no way to be. It's rather sad, actually.

In any event, the conclusion I came to whilst pondering this on the BART is that I should probably do some things for myself. I have no idea what those things might be, but it seems necessary (if not necessarily right) to root around inside for some purely selfish motivations, and see if they can't be satisfied.

So, it's this kind of head-space that I take with me to the deserts of SoCal, for a bonafide vacation weekend. It's good timing, really. I'm hoping that a change of scenery and company will help jog my thinking further.