Of course, I will take pains to fictionalize some of this, because my intention is not really to ske

One of the themes of this blog over the last couple used fifth wheel travel trailers years has been California Cosmology , a term coined by Alston Chase to describe the curious mixture of Eastern and Western philosophies, speculative science and experimental psychology that has been California s unique contribution to many modern social, spiritual and literary movements.
I have also coined the term Hotel California Cosmology here, meaning how good ideas can become something more worthy of a Christopher Guest parody than anything progressive, relevant or even helpful. One of the striking things about Hotel California Cosmology is how much sense it seems to make when you are in it, but then how jaw-droppingly awful it reveals itself to be once you are well away. In my article , I wrote about how the entry works:
But when you are searching for transformation, you can’t stay safe all the time. Sooner or later you will be sucked in by something and lose your bearings, because that’s the only way to undergo a powerful change. Finding yourself again is the tricky part, of course, but that’s kind of like waking up from a dream. First you have to fall asleep.
Now that we are in a completely new decade I want to approach this topic from a fresh perspective: how we wake up. For that, I have started a whole new category of blog posts here, called Leaving Hotel California. Those of you who are offended by satire should never, ever read these posts. For the rest of you, my people, let it be known that the gauntlet has been thrown. Not only will I talk about social and spiritual movements, but I ll also veer into the land of relationships, negotiation, and what passes for love.
Of course, I will take pains to fictionalize some of this, because my intention is not really to skewer any person, place or thing. It is to highlight the delusions that pass for truth, and the truth that gets passed over as fiction, so that others do not have to make the same mistakes that I made. Maybe they will wake up more quickly than I did, and that will be good for them. But the one virtue of staying in the fray for as long as I did is this: I have ever so much material to draw from. It s going to be a fun year.
Something that I have become more aware of involves the difference between steeping in a brewing world view as it is infusing the culture that you are growing up within (for instance, California Cosmology during the period when it was being blended used fifth wheel travel trailers together and put to steeping) and learning an already-brewed world view after you have already grown up in a culture that offers you other and not-the-same world views.