How can I judge whether the path I am on is the right one for me, a path that has meaning, purpose, and heart?

The first way I can think to judge is to pay attention to my mornings: It’d be a great sign if I’m popping out of the ol’ comfy covers excited to do the current stuff that is along path. It turns out that I am, so that’s a mark in favor of the current path.

Look around you. If there are others all moving in the same direction, and they look like you, and they move like you, and they all like the same things, and they hate the same things, and they are angry about the same things, and they are screaming about the same things, chances are you are on the wrong path.

~ Nick Cave, from How do I know I’m on the right path?

I’ll be candid, I wasn’t expecting that second-last word. But I read that little Red Hand File of Cave’s over and over. And I’m convinced he’s right.

That gives me a second method: If it feels like I’m 100% going-with-the-flow… I’m on the wrong path. I have to say, with all the projects I’m currently doing I’m not quite sure how that test plays out. Mostly, people report enjoying what I’m doing. But nobody is hating, angry, or screaming. On balance then, I’m going to say this test also goes in favor of my current path.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

~ Wilfred Arlan Peterson

Do I find I’m always thinking about the stuff I’m doing upon the path? Check number three! I spend lots of time (and journal pages) noodling on the stuff of my path. Also, I do spend a lot of time grumbling, and sometimes even whining, about the stuff of my path. That’s okay; recall that part at the top where totally going-with-the-flow is a mark against.

The best that early anatomists could do with this nerve, however, was to call it the “vagus,” from the Latin for “wandering.” The wandering nerve was apparent to the first anatomists, notably Galen, the Greek polymath who lived until around the year 216. But centuries of study were required to grasp its complex anatomy and function. This effort is ongoing: Research on the vagus nerve is at the forefront of neuroscience today.

~ R. Douglas Fields, from How Our Longest Nerve…

Above, I was thinking about paths, and then wandering as a good sign in judging my path: If the path feels interesting, in the way that wandering through a great bazaar feels interesting, then that’s a mark in the path’s favor.

But as I dipped into all my stuff, pulling on the thread “wandering”, I spun off on a tangent learning about the Vagus nerve. I’ve long know it’s not at all related to the gambling and sin city. I’ve long know about how important it is; a lot of things I practice around breathing and meditation involve stimulating the Vagus nerve. However, I’d always assumed it originated out of the spinal column somewhere. (It does not. It dangles directly out from our brains.)

[…] If our mind starts to wander, we’ll still go on breathing, go on eating, imagining things, feeling urges and so on. But getting the most out of ourselves, calculating where our duty lies, analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s time to call it quits—all the things you need a healthy mind for… all those are gone [at the end].

So we need to hurry.

Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding—our grasp of the world—may be gone before we get there.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Another test I can think of is whether or not I feel a sense of importance and even a touch of urgency. Personally, I can really get all up in my left brain and be driven by a false sense of urgency. I do not want to be feeling that sort, or amount, of urgency. But I want the work of my path to call to me when I’m doing other things. I’m okay with responding to that call, “I hear you, I’ll get to you in a bit,” but there should be some calling.

The more you get away from the studio lot, the better. The further away from the location you get the more you stop making the movie as an answer to other movies. You don’t think of it in a comparison, you’re just doing your own thing, you’re on your own adventure, you’re on your own mission. That’s when I really feel like you start getting into some good, nice, dangerous situations. Whether they are dangerous in terms of where you’re going mentally or physically – I do enjoy that.

~ Christian Bale, from Christian Bale

Is my path an adventure? Granted, I don’t want to be making antagonizing gestures at Fate (for example, by grabbing live snakes—go read Bale’s interview.) But I do want to occasionally get startled and surprised and to be generally sticking my head out the window of the car messing up my hair. Put another way: Have I got some gnarly scars from my path, and some exceptionally cool stories? Oh, my. Yes, indeed I do.

No matter where your adventure takes you, most of what is truly meaningful is still to be found revolving around the mundane stuff you did before you embarked on your adventure. The stuff that’ll still be going on long after you and I are both dead, long after our contribution to the world is forgotten. But often, one needs to have that big adventure before truly appreciating this. Going full circle. Exactly.

~ Hugh MacLeod

Perspective? I should feel like my path—albeit possibly twisty and difficult—is taking me farther up the mountain. If I’ve followed my path for a while, I should be having moments of reflection where I think: ‘Oh wow, yeah, I did that the hard way.’ Just as important, once I have some perspective I should still feel my path was the right path for me.

A prominent theme in Asian religious traditions such as the Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism is that our everyday human experience is like a dream. The dream is that you are merely a person – a thing in the world bounded by your skin, a self that is separate from things and other people. But you are not separate from things and other people. And when you see through the illusion of separation, you become ‘awakened’.

~ Brentyn J Ramm, from To experience Zen-like awakening…

And I think my path should absolutely lead to progressive awakenings.

I’ll end today with a story that rhymes with awakening…

There’s an album that was given to me in 1991. I’d sometimes lie on the floor of my college dorm room, with my headphones, and fall asleep listening to that album. It simultaneously filled my needs for music, sound immersion, personal isolation, and sleep. It was a sublime experience! To this day I sometimes still do that, and every once in a while I use that album from 1991.

The other day, I lay down on the bed, in a cool, pitch-black room for a mid-day power-nap. As the music played from my iPhone to my AirPods via Bluetooth, I was thinking, “I’ve had this album for 33 years!” and “What would 1991-me think of this technology?” The sublime experience of the album began, and I definitely fell asleep. There’s a specific part, near the end of album, where the music always wakes me up.

I woke up on the floor of my college dorm. I mean that literally. I did not think I was 20 and in my dorm—no, I was just me. I lay still, with my eyes closed, and let the album play out, regretting that the music-nap was about to end but leaning into it for the final moments. This was not a momentary flicker. I wasn’t thinking, “I feel like I did back then.” No, I woke up on the floor of my dorm: I could feel the cheap-ass carpet under my head and the headphones over my ears, and I knew where everything in the room was. Everything made sense. I was not 53-year-old me thinking about 30 years ago. I was simply me. The album finished. Finally, resigned to getting on with my life—I had classes tomorrow, exams to stress over, a girlfriend, dorm roommates—I opened my eyes to sit up…

And I had the most surreal, vertiginous, disorienting experience of realizing who and when I really was— …who I really am.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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