When I grow up, I want to be  me      . When I was a kid, I never wanted to be a doctor or a firefighter. Maybe I wanted to be a pro athlete, but those dreams were shattered quite young. Remember when there were only 8 different jobs in the world? I thought I wanted to be some sort of businessman — wear a suit to the office, climb the corporate ladder, etc. But that was never anything more than a vague vision. I didn’t really know what it was like to work in a big corporate office. It was just what many college grads did in 1992. Reagan and Iacoca and, dare I say, Trump had gotten America excited about business. Or some of us at least. But now I’m 47 years old and I finally know what I want to be when i grow up. I want to be me. I want to be the most Kirk Ahlberg that I can be. So that’s why I decided to start writing and sharing these thoughts. Trying to be me in a more public way, and wanting to talk about it as I navigate whatever it means. What if everyone was true to their deepest self — their most pure, loving soul that I know we all have. Then there wouldn’t be jobs. There’d probably be arguments but I doubt there’d be war. There’d just be a bunch of people helping each other out, sharing their particular skills with each other. Take away the top 1% of greedy, power-hungry or scared humans, and the rest of us all just want to get along. I think it would work. Now being one’s true self within the bounds of capitalism and cultural conditioning is another matter. Not many people are doing it. Money is a necessity. I’m trying not to plan. In fact I’m kind of planning not to plan. I’m trying to go with the flow. The planner in me wants me to be worrying about money, but the pure soul in me wants to go with the flow. Consider this proposal a compromise: Do you think it’s possible that, sometime in the future, I could host groups of people for a meditative, spiritual, but fun week-long retreat somewhere? Perhaps on a beautiful, rural property I owned? Are there people who would want to practice meditation 3-5 hours a day, and also talk about their experiences in the evening with a glass of wine on the veranda gazing at the mountains? Would they want to do it, in part, because I was a part of it? I’m just going to plant that seed right here and see if it grows.

I write this as I sit atop a picnic table near the railroad tracks. The picnic table is barely standing, nails sticking out above its faded grey planks like trees after a big storm.

 

My head has a nice buzz going from the legal CO weed I smoked..next to the tracks..along the gravel road.. by the broken picnic table in the sun. Being in nature with the occasional train is a wonderful experience stoned. My body is tingling and my senses are heightened. The leaves and grass chime more audibly and birds are more present. The wind on my bare arms is rustling each of my arm hairs and I can feel it. Each of my arm hairs is blowing in the breeze like the tall grasses down by the tracks.
And then when a train goes by the rumbling and clanging is positively penetrating. I close my eyes and just feel the energy. Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.
Close your eyes and empty your mind and just listen. Listen to your breath, to the ambient sounds around you.
Feel it.
Feel the energy.