Monthly Archive for July, 2004

Several of the women in my life tell me I must blog, and my life revolves around women, so I am.

I feel like the last several weeks have been mostly minutia, so rather than write some boring synopsis of the improvements in my tennis serve, the booze I have imbibed, the places I’ve traveled by road and by rail, or the opinions I have foisted upon my fellow man, I’ll just talk in vague terms about whatever pops into my head.

In two weeks, I’ll be performing an act of abandonment. I’ll get on a plane a bunch of bags, containing the clothes I own that I think look cool, the books I own that I think I still might read, and the few essentials for living which I am committed to carrying over. These essentials include:

1. One (1) carbon steel chef’s blade, with a notch out of the handle. I’m not sure if one can really bring a 10″ razor sharp blade onto a plane in their checked baggage, but if one can, it is truly essential.
2. On a related note, one (1) medium fry pan, to cook the things I chop with the knife.
3. Since I won’t have a bed, the therm-a-rest and sleeping bag are coming with. I am looking forward to several sweaty nights with my leg sticking out of the zero-degree Polar-hyper-duraloft-4D-time-cube insulation technology bag. Really, the thing is so warm, I have to get such a large portion of my body out of the bag in a deparate attempt to stay cool that it’s more like an ungainly, high tech loin cloth than a sleeping bag. But it will sure come in handy when Bush gets another term and global warming brings about another ice age.
4. My four-and-a-half year old laptop, which is newly cleaned and has a nice new nubbin and power supply, courtesy of the folks at IBM.
5. blah blah blah

Those are the essentials anyway. Food and shelter. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, (which I learned about from Skip Lowe, and are probably the only practicable bit of psychology I know,) that satisfies the most basic of my needs: physiological (food) and safety (shelter). But now that I’m thinking about Maslow, let’s try to figure out how my other needs will be met without the props of my Connecticut life.

Love, affection and belongingness. These become our priority when our safety is guaranteed, and aren’t these the things where are hit hardest when we move? We move because our head tells us to. We move to try to attain greater esteem and self actualization, but when we do move, we give up baser needs. My love with Niamh will be taxed by distance. The people who I have trusted and gone to for affection and comfort will no longer be handy. And the people and place to which I have belonged my whole life will stay here. All of these needs will need to be satisfied in new and creative ways.

But esteem and self-actualization… as I said, these are the reasons why I moving in the first place. Pursuing higher education, building a repuation, furthering myself and expanding my horizons. These are the opportunities of graduate school. Ironically, it is Maslow’s opinion that I’ll be unable to pursue them until I’ve secured love, affection and belongingness for myself, but hey. Them’s the breaks.

But what does Maslow know? It is, after all, absurdly late, and I should be focusing on sleep, a basic physiological need. But instead I am posting here, perhaps for belongingness, perhaps for love. Who knows. I’m too tired to care.

Maslow wins again.