If you know me personally, then I don’t think you’ll have any qualms
with me describing myself as a well grounded, rational and reasonable
individual. So, if what I’m about to tell you sound hokie, cultish, or
bizarre, just bear with me till the end and try it for yourself. You may
be as surprised as I was.

I just did an exercise that is aimed at discovering my true purpose in
life, and while I still need to reflect on the answer, I think it is very
compelling. Now, I’m not going to tell you what it is. That part is rather
irrelevant. What’s relevant here is the process by which I arrived at
that answer (but if you do the exercise to completion, then I will
share my answer with you).

We all wonder about our purpose, our goal in life. But chances are,
you tend to think through it by using your rational mind. You may
even have it written down in a list somewhere titled “what do I truly
care about.”

But now, for a moment, just let the emotional side take over. What
kind of answers do you imagine you will get? Can the emotional side
be effectively engaged to answer this question?

The article below describes a way to tap into your feelings and let it
tell you what you truly care about. It will give you a very clear
answer, one that is much more concrete than the intellectual list you
made.

To sum it up, the real answer will make you cry (literally). I was very
skeptical until I tried it. It took me six minutes to start balling. I made
my husband try it, it took him twenty-five minutes. But sure enough,
it worked for him too.

So, when you get home tonight, when you can be in a room by
yourself, uninterrupted for an hour, try this and see what you find.

Do you ever feel that the friends you make later in life just aren’t
the same as those you had when you were a little kid? There are
probably many reasons why: you haven’t known each other as long; you
are more polite and censored as you get older and less expressive of
your true feelings; you haven’t being through as much together. One
factor that I think makes a difference is the ratio of time that you
spend doing things together vs. talking.

Don’t get me wrong, talking is great. There are few things in life
that are as satisfying as a good conversation. As we get older,
we are much more adept at expressing our ideas, feelings, hopes and
dreams. But I’d venture to say that perhaps there is too much
emphasis on talking.

Sure, it may be the most efficient thing to do. As we get older, we
have less and less time to spend with friends. We squeeze them in for
a lunch, a dinner, a night at the neighborhood bar. That is, if we
are lucky enough to live near them. If they are an old friend from,
say college, or your last job, and if you are both very good about
keeping in touch, you’d call or email once a month. And on that one
or two joyous occasions of the year that you reunite for a day, what
do you do? You spend the majority of the time talking, getting
updates on each other’s lives and reminiscing about the stuff you did
together five years ago. In five more years, what would you be doing
when you see each other? You would do exactly the same thing except
you would reminiscent about things that happened ten years ago.

I’m a very nostalgic person myself and old memories fill me with joy
and happiness. But I became aware of the fact that if you want to
build memories for the future, you have to do things together in the
present. If you want to keep a friendship progressing, you have to
give it opportunities to grow.

If you have the time to take a road trip with an old friend, that’s
great because invariably, you will be thrown into new situations. But
what if you can’t go travel at the drop of a hat? What if you only
have a few hours here and there and can’t do a big thing together?
Well, that’s where obbies comes in. You can plan an obby to pursue
together. I know people who play emailed Scrabble or poker games
together, granted that it may take a few month to finish a game. Hey,
as long as you get it done under four month, it’s kosher.

Here are some more examples of what I mean by pursuing obbies
together. Say you both enjoy writing, how about writing a story
together by taking turns writing each paragraph? Say if you are both
into photography, what about picking a theme to photograph and create
a website to display your photos? In both of these instances, not
only did the two of you do something together, you will end up with a
product that you can further share with friends and families,
involving even more people in an experience. Friendships are among
the most important things in life for me. That’s one reason I love
the idea of obbies so much. Not only can it serve as a vehicle to
deepen old friendships, it can also be the catalyst for creating new
ones, but that’s the subject of another day.

I organized a grad student lunch for tomorrow. These are the women
who responded to my posting but couldn’t make it to the first lunch.
It just so happens that they are all grad students (or ex-grads). I
can’t wait to meet them.

How is meditation and improv comedy going to make me any
money? First of all, let me just say that I have no plans of
becoming a monk or a comedian. I know my own limits. I
guess I’m doing things field-of-dreams style: if I’m having fun,
the money will come. The idea is to spend the summer doing
fun obbies and not worry much about the making-a-living part.
Just spend some time working out the mechanics of doing
obbies, establish a community and a routine, note down the
business ideas that come to mind. Then, do a full inventory
come September.

This relaxed approach is actually quite unlike my normal style.
Normally, as soon as I start something, I notice ways to leverage the
situation and try to get better at it (even when I feel lazy, I still
think about what I should do). As a result, I often find myself deriving
secondary pleasure from solving problems and meeting challenges.
While that mode of operation does provide plenty of stimulation, I
think it has taken me away from my roots, the more primary pleasures.
I believe taking a little time to tap into those sources will payoff
in the long run.

Today, I finally heard back from the meditation center. I’m in! I’m
in for ten days of meditation in silence. I had signed up for a ten
day meditation retreat at the Vipassana Meditation Center in Shelburne
Falls, Mass. two month ago and thought they’d forgot me.

The center is completely donation based and volunteer run. I checked
out the daily schedule. It starts at the break of dawn, you basically
meditate all day either in the meditation hall or your cabin. You are
served two simple vegetarian meals. The part that make it intense is
that not only there is no talking, there is no reading or writing
either. I have tried doing meditation on my own but I can never
really stick to it. I think total immersion might be the answer.

It’s hard to imagine what the experience will be like. But I think it
may have a similar feel to when you travel to an exotic place. When
you are traveling, you are immersed in a different environment, that in
turn evokes very different feelings and emotions in you. Your senses
are heightened and you are very much in the moment. I think
meditation will tap directly into different sensations, that combined
with the fact that you are being trained to stay in the moment, will
together give an other-wordly feel.

I just got back from the Women’s Lunch. Four people showed up:
an aspiring photographer, an owner of a small marketing firm, a
massage therapist and an illustrator. We are in a similar stage in
life: early thirties and no kids. We chatted about how we came to do
what we do now. It’s just an introductory meeting. Hopefully, I will
see more of them in the future. I was right, they ARE out there, I
just have to find them.

I decided to organize a lunch and invite all the women who responded
to my posting. It’s going to be this Friday. I can’t wait to meet
them.

I just got back from my first improv class. Why improv? It looked
like so much fun. I’ve wanted to try it for quite some time.
Michelle, a friend of mine, is involved with the Tribe. So as soon as
I moved to Boston, I enrolled myself in one of their classes.

We did a whole bunch of warm up exercises that involved clapping and
cackling. Then, we did some short monologues. One exercise that I
liked in particular was to construct a story in a group. We all stood
in a line and added a sentence to the story each time it was our turn.
We ended up making up a story about a stubborn boy who wouldn’t leave a
rock.

Another reason I like improv is that I actually like the feeling of
being slightly embarrased. It’s hard to describe… I think it is
probably related to my under-developed sense of humor: I laugh
uncontrollably at fart jokes and when someone (including myself) gets
caught in an embarrassing situation.

As much as I love my improv class, I can’t call it an obby since there
is no oobby associated with it. The level II class has a performance
in the end which would have made an automatic oobby, but our class
doesn’t. Oh well, I guess not everything I do can be an obby.

I just moved to Davis Square in Somerville, Mass. It’s a bigger and
more urban version of Northampton, and probably even more diverse.
The living room is piled up with furniture and boxes. I can barely
make my way to the makeshift table and sit down. Rather than
unpacking though, I find myself spending the entire day scouring the
Internet, looking for my Peeps.

I looked up Somerville Chamber of Commerce, the SBA website,
non-profit and volunteer organizations in Boston, Craigslist Boston,
and of course, LiveJournal Davis Square. I didn’t find any obvious
channels to get in touch with my Peeps, so I decided to take a more
active approach. I made a posting on Craigslist and LJ Davis Square.

Who are these Peeps? Well, here is what I’m looking for. I’m looking
for people who

1) spend the majority of their time pursuing independent projects

2) have free time during the day

An hour after my post, I already got two responses !! Who knows what
tomorrow will bring.