Had another tiny breakthrough.  In the Continuation training, the lesson ‘My mind is here to serve Knowledge.’ has always been a bit of a sticky wicket for me.  In previous Steps cycles, whenever I encountered that short sentence, I always felt some resistance.  Something about my mind serving Knowledge, being subservient, made me uncomfortable.  But two days ago when I read through that lesson, I had a different sensation.  I felt relief.  I didn’t have to think everything through, I didn’t have to understand everything, I didn’t have to be in charge of everything.  For some reason, which I don’t totally understand, my mind seemed to have a change of heart.  It seems illogical on the face of it.  Why did my mind…change its mind?  Maybe it was just tired of the struggle.  It’s hard being perfect.  :o)  Well, I mean, it’s hard striving to be perfect.  So, I guess I finally decided…I don’t have to struggle to try and be perfect.  I can just be who I am.  And let Knowledge guide things.  I guess I’m ok with that.

Before Covid struck, I felt as if I had entered the wilderness that Marshall refers to.  A period where I was confused most of the time, a bit depressed occasionally, and generally feeling more like a beginning Steps student than I felt 4 years ago.  Also, my interests are morphing in ways I find difficult to understand.  I seem to have lost all interest in music, which is weird since it had been a dominating influence in my life.  I mean, I had somewhat of a career in it and have two music degrees.  So the shifting of interests also seems to be part of my wilderness walk.  Simplistically it could be stated: "If I'm not a musician, who am I?"  Luckily I have many interests, so that doesn't really apply to me.  Though...it sort of does.

I was communicating with one of the Worldwide Community members in 2020 and was trying to verbalize some of my thoughts on the same topic:

I feel a little better than I did last month.  I understand about the old personality dropping away. I feel that sometimes with my regular meditation, the days where I’m asked to be still. That part I do find refreshing. It’s like clearing away the riff-raff in my head…like cleaning and drying a kitchen counter. It’s the effect on all my interests that I find puzzling. I don’t feel passionate about my interests like I used to. This new ambivalence is what makes me feel like I’m wandering in the desert. So then I think…will I have a whole series of new interests? Did you find that to be the case in your wilderness experience? And what will those interests be? Will I suddenly develop an interest in economics? Or how to repair shoes? Or quantum physics? I have found that so much of how I perceive myself is wrapped up in my plethora of interests. Do you have new interests that you didn’t have 10 years ago?

So I keep plugging away and hope everything will come together naturally. My two strongest motivators in all this is reaching that moment when I ‘find out’ what my purpose is. And the experience of meeting members of my spiritual family, something I hope will be an epiphany. Or at least a raucous spiritual party.

And some wilderness thoughts from 2019:

Amidst the Steps material are references to, at some point, finding oneself in the ‘wilderness’. I’m wondering if that’s what I’m experiencing now. It’s very unpleasant, whatever it is. The overriding sensation is one of ambivalence. I mean, normally I’m a guy with a plethora of interests…art, classical music, opera, film music, films, novels, history, ideas, the direction of technology and its effects on society. Suddenly, I don’t seem to care much about any of that. I don’t really know WHAT I care about. It’s weird and sort of goes against my personality. Is my personality changing? Or do I even have a personality? I’m still making my way through the Steps lessons. And try to read a bit of the other books every day…currently on ‘Wisdom from the Greater Community’ vol. 1. For those Steps students who have gone through this wilderness phase, does this sound familiar? Or do I just need to see a therapist?

Last night I was at a Mexican restaurant with some friends and I should have been having a good time. All I could do was watch all the other customers and wonder if they were feeling as lost as I was. And I could barely hear what my friends were talking about. As I said, very unpleasant.

Right now, I feel that I've been moving out of the wilderness and into some new phase.  The whole Covid experience was very distracting and I retired from my work in June, 2022.  Which is its own type of adjustment.  I'm glad to be out of the malaise of the wilderness.  I'm still distracted by daily endeavors but I do feel better about myself and feel as if things have been moving on deep levels.  TBC...