Rebuilding My Life

A' Chailin Rua sent me this quote the other day:  "If you knew how hard it was and how long it took to rebuild my little universe of peace and happiness then you would understand why I'm so picky about who I allow into my life."

As I looked at the quote and thought about it (and how much I agreed with it), the thought suddenly hit me that I am in the process of rebuilding my life.

It was not something that has intentionally happened - it is not as if I sat down and said "I am going to completely change my life."  But what seems to have occurred is that my life has been changing, first at the fringes and now more and more at the core.  Who I was a mere nine years ago - good heavens, a mere two years ago - has changed, and somewhat drastically.  And while I do not completely understand the nature of the changes or what it means, I am conscious that they are present  and that I have to adapt to them.

As I have written earlier, it was made more than obvious to me when I started doing the count of people in my life that are not passing associates at work or someone I see or speak to once in a while.  That number is low - and controlled to specific areas.  And as I considered that and considered my activities, I suddenly found that many of my interests had changed over time as well.  Not all of them, mind you:  the bedrock still seems to be there along with some of the things I have picked up along the way (Iaijutsu for example), but a lot of the other things have either completely disappeared or are receding quickly from view.

As I go through the exercise of slowly excising my presence from the InterWeb, I am discovering that I have filled my life with a great many things that while at the time may have been entertaining or important, no longer seem to hold any interest or importance.

I made my list on what I wanted to focus on for the next few years.  While it was not in many ways that different from a list I would have made 25 years ago, what was different was the distinct lack of "being social and connected" that was on it (or, as it is known, the social economy).  It seems I have passed the point of expansion, at least there, and am moving into a phase of significant contraction from all of that and much that the world has to offer.

And so I find, perhaps almost accidentally, that at a half century I am effectively rebuilding a life - or perhaps better put, removing the superstructure and rebuilding on the original foundation.