For years I’d forgotten that the quest for the mindnut even exists. It only came back to me recently while walking around Pomona’s campus after five years away and flashing back to the original inspiration for the name that I picked up during a general education requirement course I registered for on a whim: the spiritual practice of Indian sadhus storing up their seminal fluid and directing it up their central channel until it burst forth from the crown of their head as the thousand petalled lotus of enlightenment. The literal, O.G. mindnut. Pretty sure I dropped my major in economics and transferred over to religious studies the next day. Sounds about right for 18
Coming back to this corner of the Internet where I publicly exposed many thoughts that probably should have stayed private or at least been more closely curated has been a mixed bag. It’s remarkable to have so closely documented my interior world for an extended period of time and then abruptly gone dark. I tend to cringe at anything I’ve written in the past and most of what’s on here is no exception, especially the name of the blog itself. Even so, it’s been a good catalyst for thinking about how much my life and my ideas about what a mindnut really is have changed since the last time I treated this blog as a sort of public confessional/think piece, let alone from when I was most invested in this space at 19!years old. Cringeworthy as the name seems now, it’s a good reminder of where all this started.
Almost 7 years on, it’s hard to know how much I’ve actually changed. I definitely grow a better beard now. I have somehow become far more idealistic and far more cynical at the same time. I have come to appreciate the value of a liberal arts education for informing how I view the world while also realizing how bereft of practical skills it left me and how comically unprepared it left me to do many of the things that now feel most worthwhile to me. I have repeatedly seen that governments can rarely be trusted to act in the best interest of the people they are theoretically responsible to represent and protect and that people are responsible for their own self-determination. I (finally) learned that there’s no valid reason whatsoever for me to have dreadlocks as a white guy. I have fallen in love (twice!) and entered relationships that seemed very much worth planning my future around right up until they didn’t. I have come to appreciate that coffee and alcohol are two of the worst things to put into my body yet still regularly consume both (though in increasingly modest amounts!) I discovered the joy and beauty of solo backpacking and that traveling by myself is one of the times during which I feel least alone. I have built a network of friends around the world while simultaneously losing touch with some of the places that have most defined me.
The concrete details feel less poetic. Five years ago I committed to pursuing a Master’s in Buddhist studies at a university in Kathmandu. A month later, I promptly bailed on that commitment in favor of spending 2 years living an impossibly idyllic life in Oregon practicing massage and teaching yoga, enjoying an existence that I sometimes wonder why I ever walked away from and if I’ll ever obtain again. For reasons that come in and out of focus depending on the day, I opted to return to my hometown as a pre-med student (two developments that I never expected) in the pursuit of the first concrete, self-directed, long-term goal I’ve had in as long as I can remember. Amidst all that I managed to visit 40 new countries, hitchhike across international borders, and only get a little bit of tear gas in my eyes. Now I’m on the cusp of committing to a life and career that will limit my mobility and spontaneity in ways that I like to pretend I understand but that I honestly cannot even truly begin to comprehend after having lived the way that I have for the past 5 years.
The closer school gets, the more I consider the fact that my life will never again change as intensely or as frequently as it has over the past 5 years. Depending on the day, that reality is alternatively terrifying and deeply affirming In many ways, I find that life is more easily lived in motion. When my environment is constantly changing, it’s impossible not to be present. The world feels new and alive again in ways that are hard for me to experience otherwise. With so many new stimuli, presence is just the default. On the move, I can be whoever you want to be, choosing to go as deep or remain as superficial as I please depending on the interaction. Transience is easy because it asks very little of me once I’ve committed to the principle up front.
However, great as the rewards may be, they’ve diminished over time. Every new place is an incredible world to be explored, but they rarely have the transformative power they used to. On the move over a long enough period, purposelessness and feelings of self-indulgence rise to the surface. What’s the point? Who else is it for?
At this point, it’s stability that’s hard, requiring the far more challenging work of sending down roots, building community, and exposing myself more fully to whoever I’ve surrounded myself with. But I’m ready to have a home and to learn what it means to translate all of this into something actionable. Hungry as I am for new experiences, I’ve come to see them as valuable primarily for their ability to inform the more mundane business of how I go about my day-to-day life at home and the long-term goals that are most worth working towards, whether those are personal, political, social, whatever. Integrating those experiences and defining those goals is very much a work in progress, but they’re at the heart of what the quest is about these days. 8 years from when the idea of the mindnut was born, I’m curious to rediscover what it means to me today.
Questing for the Mindnut 