One of the things I do of late when I come back to NYC is see women I used to be involved with. I'm a big believer in maintaining connections, especially the ones that have meant a lot, and it's been a point of pride for me that I'm friendly with virtually all my lovers and girlfriends.

Life in the Woods is more romantically lonely (lots more) than my urban days have been, so I really enjoy these dinner dates, remembering what it was like. I've no real agenda in mind, but it does wonders for my psyche to sit down with a beautiful girl and have a good conversation and realize that I'm still a likable guy. My day-to-day doesn't offer me much evidence of this -- again, speaking in a romantic context -- and my self-confidence is fragile enough that after spending enough time without positive feedback I begin to regress.

So last night I was having a great chat with this tall, enterprising, quick-witted beauty at the still-excellent Great Jones Cafe, and the topic of nostalgia comes up; my saw being that it feels depressingly premature to be looking back like that at the tender age of 27. She has a really great insight: the devilish thing isn't reminiscing for "the old times" as it's inevitable and arguably proper to cherish your own personal history, and anyway if you want to do the things you used to do, the odds are you can do them again. That's just a question of will. The real bugger is missing the person you used to be.

I've been sort of sleepwalking through life lately, my soul sort of elsewhere. I'm feeling my energy down at a low ebb, little interest in trying to make good connections with people, little interest in trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In practical terms everything is great. I've been having a wonderful summer seeing lots of friends and living a kind of life I find deeply appealing. I've been carrying on a somewhat successful trans-continental romance. I've found my way back into free agency on the work front. All this is good, and yet it's also somehow not enough -- perhaps I'm not enough: insufficiently present, decisive, focused, etc.

There's no easy explanation for any of this. I'll think sometimes it's the pabst or the hash or all the rich food, and then I'll live clean and feel about the same only maybe a little more bored. I do know that exercise helps, and that I've felt this way before, and that this too shall pass, and so I'm not really worried... just trying to explain where I am.

It feels difficult to maintain a conscience in this modern world, to reconcile this with ambition. I want my sparky vigor back, my sense of what's true. I'm tired of getting old.

So the site is going dark for a bit. This'll be the last wordpress post. In addition to not writing anything here, I'll also not be reading any of my usual political blogs or any news online. It's a bad habit of mine. Being informed is great, but there's a kind of compulsiveness to my informational multitasking. I've been practicing this today and I can feel the moments where I think "hmmm, maybe I'll check Atrios" and I can feel the energy that can be re-channeled there.

It's fun to feel like I'm a part of this big online politlcal conversation, and it's an important conversation that's really happening, but the truth is that at this point I'm mostly spectating, and I think there might be better uses of my time. So media-wise I'll probably be out there with the rest of you, catching up via NPR and scanning the headlines at the grocery store.

I'm also going to be back in NYC for Aug 22-29, staying with the transatlantic romance. Should be interesting and certainly will be fun.

Look for something new in early September, maybe some video hits before then if the spirit moves me.

The other day after my last day of work I made the executive decision to get pretty high and take a hot shower, do some yoga, pushups, handstands, and generally stretch out my mind and body. It's kind of a ritual thing for me, similar to heavy cardiovascular exercise; helps to keep the engine running clean.

In the midst of this I encountered a hard knot of fear, which is unusual for me. I don't tend to be afraid of things -- paranoia's not my style -- but for a bit there I was grappling with some kind of deep and undeniable terror. It was a moment of weakness and confusion, debilitating even, and as I tried to relax my body and breathe through it, I also of course tried to figure out what was causing this mind-killing tension.

I'm afraid of dissapointing people, that I won't be able to live up to the expectations I create around myself. I'm afraid that I'll end up a faker, a poseur, a con. I'm afraid I won't be able to live through to my highest ideals, that lazyness and greed will drag me down. I'm afraid of wasting my life in some fruitless pseudo-bohemian masturbatory snit, and at the same time I'm afraid of "settling down" and "growing up" in conventional terms.

I believe I'm reaching a point in my life where I have to start making choices, and I worry about making the wrong ones, about writing metaphysical checks that my butt can't cash. I'm afraid that I won't be able to do it; I'm afraid of what might happen if I do.

This calls to mind that Nelson Mandella quote about how what we fear most is not that we are powerless, but that we are powerful. I think it's a little bit too glib to make much of a life philosophy, but there's a pretty sharp kernel of truth in there.

A more precise formulation for me is that I fear the responsibility that comes with the power of my agency. I do sort of believe that I can do anything, which as a younger man was quite a liberating and energizing idea to have, and one that I cherish and seek to spread. Yet as the idea becomes more and more realized -- "why yes, I can accomplish quite a lot if I put my mind to it" -- it grows more complex.

I think this is part of why people have conventional careers. Having a trail before you that's clearly marked and endorsed by your tribe eases these concerns. I don't have any such path; I'm am sort of out in the wilderness, feeling that my ability to find a way through the thick of life on some level matters, not just to me and my soul-survival, but to something greater as well.

This could well be hubris and nothing else. I don't get paranoid, but that doesn't mean I don't suffer from other problems of egocentricity. Delusions of grandeur, perhaps. My general sense though is that it's not worth second-guessing these kinds of feelings unless they're demonstraby proving themselves to be destructive, and so far my self-importance hasn't been more than annoying.

Anyway, it's not like I have a choice. I'm not gonna put on a tie and live in a cube or anything, so it's the wilderness for me, friends. Nothing to do but face this fear head on and plunge forward into the darkness.

From the Jung book I'm reading on my subway rides (emphasis mine):

We should expect the doctor of have an infleunce on the patient in every effective psychic treatment: but this influence can only take place when he too is affected by the patient. You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

This is a pretty deep thing, and it goes well outside psychotherapy. It's something I wrestled with a lot when I was more regularly into acting and performing. Creating a space of vulnerability on stage was a critical part of the method that I pursued. This involves breaking the fourth wall, bringing the audience into direct human contact with the performer. It's a powerful technique that only works at close-range, but I really enjoyed using it.

This is also something that I have to work on in my personal life. In spite of my gregarious nature, I keep a pretty sizable portion of myself to myself in most situations, or at least immune to external input. That's a limitation, maybe borne from defense (once bitten, etc), that I'd like to work out.

From the Jung book I'm reading on my subway rides (emphasis mine):

We should expect the doctor of have an infleunce on the patient in every effective psychic treatment: but this influence can only take place when he too is affected by the patient. You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

This is a pretty deep thing, and it goes well outside psychotherapy. It's something I wrestled with a lot when I was more regularly into acting and performing. Creating a space of vulnerability on stage was a critical part of the method that I pursued. This involves breaking the fourth wall, bringing the audience into direct human contact with the performer. It's a powerful technique that only works at close-range, but I really enjoyed using it.

This is also something that I have to work on in my personal life. In spite of my gregarious nature, I keep a pretty sizable portion of myself to myself in most situations, or at least immune to external input. That's a limitation, maybe borne from defense (once bitten, etc), that I'd like to work out.

(GD anthem!^*)

Wild mood swings lately. Serindipity's been riding high as well, me calling out to people just as they were doing the same otherwise. Strange connections across the lattice. I feel kind of like I'm coming out of a shell; little cracks and breakthroughts and then, oh man, slow down, I'm beat.

It always comes in fits and starts, and my overactive superego isn't helping much. Sans bike I've been reading on the MTA a bunch, picking up The Dharma Bums for a little brain-candy, and C.G. Jung's Modern Man in Search of a Soul for a little more substance. They make an interesting combo, but they're helping, no doubt.

Also a relief: I've been sweating this bachelor thing this weekend, but it all seems to be coming into focus. People piling on to help out, being major sports about getting into the act. It should be grand fun.

Still excited about getting my ass in motion, but starting to think about the people I won't be seeing, even just the neighborhood I won't be able to walk around in. Gives me a bit of pause. It's typical Koenig -- all jazzed up to be on the move and only later on really thinking about what's been left behind. Oh well, c'est la vie.

^*I found that music above -- and clearly that other link to the same artist -- via my old collaborator Johnny Nichols (who's on my MySpace now, natch) who's getting effing married himself. Cheerio there.

(GD anthem!^*)

Wild mood swings lately. Serindipity's been riding high as well, me calling out to people just as they were doing the same otherwise. Strange connections across the lattice. I feel kind of like I'm coming out of a shell; little cracks and breakthroughts and then, oh man, slow down, I'm beat.

It always comes in fits and starts, and my overactive superego isn't helping much. Sans bike I've been reading on the MTA a bunch, picking up The Dharma Bums for a little brain-candy, and C.G. Jung's Modern Man in Search of a Soul for a little more substance. They make an interesting combo, but they're helping, no doubt.

Also a relief: I've been sweating this bachelor thing this weekend, but it all seems to be coming into focus. People piling on to help out, being major sports about getting into the act. It should be grand fun.

Still excited about getting my ass in motion, but starting to think about the people I won't be seeing, even just the neighborhood I won't be able to walk around in. Gives me a bit of pause. It's typical Koenig -- all jazzed up to be on the move and only later on really thinking about what's been left behind. Oh well, c'est la vie.

^*I found that music above -- and clearly that other link to the same artist -- via my old collaborator Johnny Nichols (who's on my MySpace now, natch) who's getting effing married himself. Cheerio there.

So.

I've been dating the same lady for more than three months now, which is a long time for me. It feels like we're getting to an inflection-point. There's a level of intimacy and trust now that's pretty awesome -- we've talked about/around most of what I'm discussing here -- and yet at the same time it's sort of clear to both of us we're not going to settle down with one another and get married.

I take the view that life is a long game and I try to keep my womanly connections -- because, hey, you never know. Tangled up in Blue is one of my favorite songs. Moreover, I know a good thing when I see it and I'm not looking to mess with what I've got, but I'm starting to chafe a bit in this relationship. Given that there are rumors (no doubt propogated by my enemies) that I have a "fear of committment," and that the original purpose of me starting to self-publish on these internets was to create a vehicle for honest introspection, I figure it's a worthy topic for blogging.

My understanding of love is as a sort of fever, a force of nature, something that sweeps over you and changes the way you see things. It is something I don't pretend to understand or control, and it's not something that happens very often. It is mysterious, and yet I also know that it is real. I long for this feeling, and not just with regards to women. I want, perhaps to an unreasonable degree, to be passionate about my life.

And yet a lasting relationship is not a fever. It is a series of choices. It is communication, and a shared understanding. It is intentional. It is to some extent planned. There's a tension here.

I envision my future self as a family man, a community member. I want to be a dad. I think it will be really hard for me if my friends start to have kids before I've settled down. I'm going to want them, badly.

When I start to think seriously about this, the implications are rather terrifying and enormous. Managing the twenty-year period of relative stability a family requires is a rather daunting task. I haven't had the same address for more than 18 months in the last eight years, and for most of 2005 I was literally an itinerant rambler, wandering the country. Lucas and I enjoy the pat answer of "thirty five to fifty five" as it pushes this off another eight years into the future, but that's a total dodge and everyone knows it.

Beyond the material concerns, there's an even more troubling and deep question: just who exactly do you think you're going to be spending these twenty years with? I haven't stuck by any woman for more than six or seven months -- hence these rumors about a fear of committment -- so the prospect of settling down is something of a quantum leap, behaviorally speaking.

I've spent the majority of my adult life a single man, and for the most part I've enjoyed it. I enjoy freedom, and not just sexually (although that's nice too). I enjoy being able to spend my time however I like, dictatorial control over my evening hours. I enjoy being unfettered by responsibility in lots of little ways. I am pretty independent by nature.

And now I'm in a relationship with a girl that I like, but I don't have that fever. It's going places, but not all the way. I care about her, but in practice that mostly means I worry about hurting her feelings at some unknown juncture down the road. We talk about this, and we understand one another pretty well, and this is why the relationship continues, but I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. I don't know that there is a right thing to do.

Everyone in my cohort is questioning why they live in New York City. Some have good jobs. Some are mainly anchored here by their social network. Some remain feverishly in love with this world capital of a city. Some are planning to leave. I generally count myself in-between the middle two camps. My work is completely portable, and from a strictly financial point of view I aught to be angling to reduce my cost of living and maximize my take-home profits. But I have friends here, and I'm still drawn to the pulse of New York, so this is where I live for now, but I also don't see it being where I spend the rest of my life.

I think another reasons I stay here is that I think of it as a probable place to meet the right woman. I am decidedly picky when I'm not man-slutting it up, and one of my big sticking points is ambition. Just about any woman you meet here is bound to be ambitious. I'm also, as I said, pretty independent, and most New York girls are similarly capable of making their own way in the face of adversity. These are qualities that are harder to find out there in the world I think. There are also a lot of beautiful people here, a point not to be discounted.

In the end, I have perhaps impossibly high expectations. But I'm not really willing (at this point) to settle when it comes to settling down. And so this cosmic ballet continues. Nothing conclusive yet.

The Girth is in town. We met up last night and threw down a few. I've been fighting a cold, so was not really as animated and engaged as I hope to be. I was sort of distressed to hear him say there's some significant support for Bush's wartime-powers wiretapping defense within the Law School cotire.

Pawing around some borrowed internet -- sometimes the neighbor's signal comes through well enough to web-surf from bed -- I see that the groundlings are hard at work on the possibility of an Alito filibuster. This is good, but I also agree with Mr. Stoller, that the establishment blew it on this one, and that this "Fillibuster" smells like an act of political theater to keep the Party's base from tuning out in disgust. Particularly innefectual in all this have been the likes of PFAW and NAARL, who have made the Supreme Court a core part of their reason d'etre for more than a decade.

I go into this because I'm trying to design a career arc for myself, and being some kind of change-agent remains fairly important to me. Questions of how, where and under what terms to interface with established institutions (like the Democratic Party) are somewhat prominant in my mind.

Over dinner last night, Frank and Laura were talking about the possibility of leaving New York to start married life. Though it was a little surprising, it makes sense to me. Unless you're pulling down big money in Manhattan or you've got a pile of cash in trust or inheratence, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try and start a business enterprise or a family here.

The question must be asked: why am I living in NYC right now?

I don't have a good answer, other than that I have a lot of friends here. But really, I don't seem to see people all that often, and while I enjoy the daily life in BKLYN, I could get a similar quality of life in a lot of otther places. Living here is not boosting my career in any way, and the cost of living kind of works against my plans to retire debt and save money in 2006.

I'm not about to leave, but as I come up on a possible moving date from my current sublet, I have to start wondering about these things. I'm not at all unhappy, but as I begin to consider more deeply what the hell I'm doing with my life, the cold calm calculus of reason begins to beg a number of questions.