A day at the museum

I could not believe, after a full day of going through the American Museum of Natural History in the most efficient manner possible, I still have one more trip to the museum left to complete my project of taking notes on all halls relevant to the timeline and details of the evolution of life on Earth. This is my third visit since starting this project! But it is not really a complaint--my trips have renewed a deep spiritual feeling about our origins and place in the universe that has been absent for a while. I was reminded of how precious time spent in wilderness is and how moved I am by the plight of our environment. In my life, I want to be a steward of the land and protector of wild places.

I noticed several times today how selfish and bristly I've become since taking up life in this city. Frazzled with how much information there was left to document when the museum was due to close in less than an hour, I was terse to a woman working there who had stopped to offer help with information. She seemed so sincere and enthusiastic, at other times in my life I would have probably been friendly to such a being instead of irritable. I am very aggressive in my behavior regarding public transportation and being in any sort of line now, where I used to be mellow and noncompetitive. I don't like the feeling that comes with this way of being.

A recent chain of events in my life has left me feeling like my heart has been ripped out and fed to a shark. I am perplexed by my behavior and feel an immense sense of wrongness about some of the choices I have made and actions I have taken. And yet at the same time there is a sense of inevitability and correctness to the way things have played out. There is an incongruous oscillation between these two feelings and I realize I really don't have a clue about how things "should have happened." I need to let this sit a while.

I can say, though, in general I want to be less impulsive and aggressive. I can blame this shithole metropolis for my hardened exterior, but I know with effort, I can restrain impulse and aggression, so the reason I have become like this is somewhat irrelevant.

I am so grateful I have this form of Ango to offer an alternative to lazy habit and infectious aggression.