At the Crossroads Again

I'm thinking about the idea of crossroads now.

Legends state that in exchange for the music, the blues guitarist Robert Johnson had sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads. Criminals were buried there, in the hopes that their ghosts would be confused by the roads. For me, my crossroads is that I'm moving on from my current job in a time of global financial crisis.

You might ask, why now? After all, only an idiot would resign without a backup plan. Well, I'm sending out my resume. I'm also courting work from a family friend-- thank goodness for nepotism. But only because I've always been interested in their project ever since I went to Mindanao with a group of friends oh so many years ago.

My point being is that after almost eight months in this job, I've lost the taste of life-- no joy, no joy, ashes on my tongue. One sign of this is the dearth of posts in this blog: what, almost one post a week? I've tried to maintain a discipline of writing at least, managing to finish and submit a couple of stories in the interim. But as time goes by and the work piles up, the well of writing... just dries up, I guess.

My work is not my life, I had told myself last year. But that's the funny thing about work: you do the job but one day, you find out that you ARE the job. And when it fails, you find out that it's YOU that fails.

So: it's time to move on. Let's hope for better days, yes? And to all the people I've met through my work, thanks for the help and keep in touch, okay?

I Went

I didn't restrain myself. I gave in completely and went,
went to those pleasures that were half real,
half wrought by my own mind,
went into the brilliant night
and drank strong wine,
the way the champions of pleasure drink.

Constantine P. Cavafy