Ruminating in Dubai

Sitting in the Vienna Cafe at the JW Marriott in Dubai enjoying a latte and OJ, waiting for my breakfast, while Josh Garrels from my phone is feeding my head. Here for Boeing recurrent. Got in yesterday traveling from Bahrain in Business on Emirates. N and M are in the US. Yesterday was a lazy day. Very tired. Tried to sleep, surfed the channels, finally went to sleep late afternoon. Woke up around 6:30pm. Did some exercise in the gym, then went down to the pub and had two beers and a quesadilla. Watched a little live music, which was fantastic! Very talented Filipino band. Felt good. Went to bed and surfed the TV again. Settled again on music videos. Watched a series of videos from an artist known as Rhianna. Probably very famous. Music and video editing was superb. It's been so long since I've enjoyed good art. A bit suggestive ...okay, very suggestive, but that is to be expected. It's interesting to see that now as a 43 year old man. It doesn't have the power over me that it used to. I was living yesterday as a silent observer of my own self. The human experience is so fascinating. I was observing how it felt to exercise, have two beers, watch sports, listen to good live music, or music videos. Just tasting life, quietly, modestly. No hookers, no excessive drinking, no drugs, just appreciation of the little things. Enjoying the effect of the latte and good oatmeal this morning. Working on some fruit. Enjoying my iTunes. Thinking, pondering... Don't want to read the bible and disturb my reverie. It invariably makes me mad. Thinking about the forces at work in the world. The push, pull, pressure, resistance, retaliation, revolution, greed, corruption, gluttony, fear, piety, restlessness, hunger, jealousy, flattery, angst, love, lust. Tight clothes, high heels, hunger, bare shoulders - trading sex, or even just the thought of it, for the apparition of love, or, ...at least a better income. Or enormous guts like scarlet letters revealing years of emptiness, want and indiscretion. Patience and moderation now seem to be a thing of the past. Want want want, take take take, use use use. Thinly veiled manipulation reverberates on every billboard, tv screen, and magazine- but nobody cares anymore. Denial is a powerful anesthetic. Pretending you are loved and wanted is better than the alternative... I observe all this from my perch, as I watch life go by like endless traffic on a busy highway. I've seen the cycle too many times, and have let it bite me more than once. Want repels love, which only feeds the want. Love can only be really found when want is gone. You can only get it when you don't need it - because it happens only when you are full enough to give. It is a profound paradox, much like greatness found only in service, "the first will be last and the last will be first." I'm at the edge of what I consider to be a fairly powerful choice. Well, the choice has already been made, really, but the final act is yet to come. Still reversible at this point. I'm about to leave a perfectly good job that pays me a quarter of a million dollars annually to do very easy work that gives me plenty of time with the family. I'm trading all this in for a salary of less than 50K, more work, less vacation, and less time at home - just to be back in the U.S. with family and friends, and to break the spell of affluence. I'm willingly checking back into the mainstream. Back to struggle, and want. Back to "never enough." All tempered by freedom from debt, ownership of property and half a mill in the nest egg, ...but nevertheless much less than what it could have been if I would have stayed. What an experience these last 5 years have been! I'm full of memories and a new perspective on, ...everything. Much like what good science fiction does to pull you out of your life to see the same issues in a different context - so you can see it clearly for what it is - removed from the fog of familiarity. I immersed myself in a radically different world view these last 5 years. The context was different, but the longer I was here, the more familiarity I felt. My upbringing was heavily influenced by the worldview of my family, and I've found that the same piety, pride, and dogma induced blindness occurs here. The apparition of certainty dulls the senses in any world-view and closes the mind, it seems. I've found another paradox, which is - allowing oneself to risk letting go of "certainty," opens the mind to truth. Seeing life the way it is, instead of the way you want to, is, ...powerful! Truth can only be know when you can admit that you don't know it... Wow. Very Krishnamurti, I know. This has been nice. I guess I started this more than a few hours ago. Ruminating in a coffee shop, listening to music. I can see myself doing this a lot in the next phase of my life. Time now to prepare for the job at hand. Recurrent training of the Boeing 737. I should look over the limitations and procedures. First the bathroom...