Parents are here. Spent the day with them. Usually these times are freakish and dichotomous, but this visit is plainly surreal. Hard to say more than that. Not that it is a bad surreal. It's like I've survived the last lightning round in the son-parent competition, and now I'm getting the tour of this show's grand prize package. A full glimpse of reality along with a year's supply of Turtle Wax. Well, we'll see what happens when I spend a whole day of travel and lavender farm tours with them.
Weirdest thing is how revitalizing their presence is, to my life overall. Maybe that's the belt of reality. The presence of my parents lend an external substance to my independence, like them coming here unconsciously affirms the reality of my independence, and they have had to accept it. I know I shouldn't be relying on external affirmation. But damn, it feels funky good.
 

"Seeing. We might say that the whole of life lies in that verb - if not in end, at least in essence. Fuller being is closer union; such is the kernel and conclusion of this book. But let us emphasize the point: union can only increase through an increase in consciousness; that is say in vision. And that, doubtless, is why the history of the living world can be summarised as the elaboration of even more perfect eyes within a cosmos in which there is always something more to be seen. After all, do we not judge the perfection of an animal, or the supremacy of a thinking being, by the penetration and synthetic power of their gaze? To try to see more and better is not a matter of whim or curiosity or self-indulgence. To see or to perish is the very condition laid upon everything that makes up the universe, by reason of the mysterious gift of existence. And this, in superior measure, is man's condition."

- From the Foreword of The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin

Yes, it has been over a month and a half since my last post. You may be asking yourself, "Self? Where has Alan been to go so long without blogging?" A valid question, indeed.

In my quest for self-enlightenment, I traveled deep into the Amazon to find the legendary Potted Tribesmen of the Incadincadoo. Through deepest South American jungle, I skirted being a snack for an alligator, was bit by the infamous flatulence beetle, and dueled with amebic dysentery. Finally I found the Incadincadoo and won them over with gifts of Swatch watches, Neil Diamond T-Shirts, and Rubik's Cubes. Indeed these were the tribe that time forgot. The shaman anointed my head with his ritual club and ran off with my shoes. I sat around the fire and sucked down distilled juice of the rare rainforest rutabaga, which showed me my animal spirit guide, the red-throated nut parrot. Many visions did I have, and I was one with all things. I understood, even for a moment, understood the purpose of the Republican Party, but then I knew it was a rutabaga, and got the runs again. Yet, from all this, it was not enough, and I had to seek more enlightenment elsewhere.
Next I trekked into the secret valleys of the Himalayas where I found sanctuary for a time with the ancient Yellow Monks of Ou-Rine who helped me to empty myself in preparation for their profound secret ways. I also emptied my bowels as I got the trots from drinking their rancid ox-nard butter tea. Between visits to the hole in the ground out back, I was honored to hear the monotonic gargling chants of the Yellow Monks, unheard by any other white man since 1923. I was lead high into the mountains where I meditated day and night, living only on appetite for truth, and a couple of candybars I smuggled up with me. I left my body to cross over onto the astral plane, but I was stopped at customs for not declaring my soul and having an invalid aetheric passport. Wondrous was my stay in those towering mountains, but yet my thirst was unslaked.
Bereft and perplexed, I followed a enigmatic lead to a hidden underground keep in the French Alps where I was given special tutelage by the Italian Illuminated Master Aun-Chovee. The hoary secrets of the vast hidden hermetic library were open to me. I saw him perform miracles. Aun-Chovee summoned angels and demons, talked with long-dead natural philosophers, and the truly impossible miracle; finding good Chinese food that delivers in under 45 minutes on a Saturday night. Most astounding of all, I was allowed to hear the only true recording of God, on the divine device brought back with the Knights-Templar: The Tetragrammaphone. I drew in all this knowledge, but I was still discontent.. and also incontinent, from all the rich French food.

So, I returned home, to write again in my blog, and share the two lessons I learned in the last days.. One, enlightenment cannot be gained if it is sought, and always bring your own food and water when you travel abroad.