Find a truly original idea. It is the only way I will ever distinguish myself. It is the only way I will ever matter.

–A Beautiful Mind (2001)

This time apart from social media sites has given me the freedom to explore beauty and in that discovery, come up with something brilliant in that escape of the weight of daily dogma—the expectations of society of the position I should take on... whatever. As a bemused, befuddled, and bemoaned follower of Jesus, there are all sorts of overt and covert expectations volleyed from a wide range of hosts: from bible thumpers to libel humpers; there are too many, ill-conceived boxes that were never meant to package me. When I was on the other side of the fence of academia, I felt the pressures of relativism, a rancid relativism that at my core, I cannot believe, but nevertheless I defended because that was my archetype... safe... lukewarm water.

However, this epiphany is no epiphany; it is merely the removal of desk clutter to see my desk calendar; it is Windex and a rag to clear my Sitka window to the see the mountains that offer their wilderness.

I further define fasting as just that. Over the years, I've tried to encapsulate exactly what it means "to fast." I don't have an answer for it and likely, I'll never be able to communicate it beyond a metaphor of what it is like, not unlike the use of parables by Jesus to describe the kingdom of God.

But, a Facebook "fast," is merely an appetizer to the spiritual realm of an actual fast from food. It has been challenging to get my mind to a place where I can seek God through a fast. So many earthly desires tug at me as I trot off in the direction of my Scooby Snacks. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Today on my lunch break, I sit in a server room in Sitka, Alaska.

Six months ago....

...I finished up an amazing Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification program in Plzen, Czech Republic that enabled me to teach for my first time.

...I received a Master of Arts in ESL

...I begin work toward a PhD in linguistics with a Fall semester where I taught English Composition to freshman students.

I loved that experience—walking down the corridors of brilliant minds, delivering an arena rock showmanship of teaching, and dreaming the possibilities of what I might do and where I might go in 3-4 years. I wanted to pursue tangible, real research—work that had pragmatic application and not lost in the dusty confines of a PDF archive on JSTOR.

Beyond the self-serving intellectual delight, my main focus of pursing academia—the reason I chose to do it— is for my family. That's it. At the time, I felt an IT generation or two removed from that career and thought I was no longer employable in the field.

Six months ago, I was poor with a big-ticket mind no pawn shop would take.

As I became increasingly involved into the discipline, it became apparent that its pursuit would not effectively meet its objective. Even after earning a doctorate, there was no hope of anything that I could not already achieve in the private sector. There was no promise of a better tomorrow to pull my family out of an economic quagmire today. At the end of the day, we're talking about risk assessment and payoff. I could have stayed where I was. In the solace of oblivion, I could have kept my nose stuck in the books as the world rages on.

But, I didn't. I rolled the dice.

Oh Bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long

-traditional Irish song

It hit me as I find myself at Republic Coffee, the gravity of the situation that is before me. It is greater than as to whether or not I remain in Memphis. I truly enjoy the fellowship I have with close friends. It is good that I can sit in here at night and be immersed in a social subculture where I do not have a close relationship with all of the regulars, but we identify how our place is here and in some sort of "Cheers-ian" logic, it is right. Nowhere else in the world, not the Dunkin' Donuts Net café in Berlin or the Irish taverns in Belfast, can I find what I have here in Memphis. Though these things mean so much to me, as a whole, it is all up in the air. Though we all live lives that are this fragile, my situation gives an ever so clear representation of this attribute. When I see friends, I see now that this may be the very last time I see them on this side of eternity. When I go to the Loop tonight, it may be the last time I do. When I shoot pool with another friend, it may be the last time I scratch on the eight ball with him.

Yet, even though this is big, it is not the whole story. If it is not to be at the University of Memphis, then I shall leave my IT career behind in Memphis. I shall drive across the wide plains, a drive alone in the western reaches underneath the desert sun, to pursue the identity God intends for me to be. I do not know what that will entail.

My life is not my own to live. I have been given freedom; what shall I do with that freedom? It is a question that vexes my soul, whether I will find myself in Memphis in the weeks that follow, or if it is time for me to go. It is more than a question of location, rather, a question of life focus. My education and professional experience to this point has been focused on information technology. Will that change? My entire life is brought up to this single point in time.

I am brought back to the early hours of a morn. As the ocean mist glanced past my face, I stood alone on the portside deck of a ship crossing the ocean from Ireland to France. I did not know what life for me there would entail though I had been there before and as I wanted to scan the horizon, my eyes only searched the fog. I am there again, headed for a coast I do not see, turning to look back at that which is no longer.