Lauren got me a red moleskin. Or rather, I finally got the red moleskin that Lauren bought me for my birthday in July. Assuming that the book has symbolic significance of self-realization and carpe-diem, I could say that maybe it wasn't meant to be until now. I nearly finished the last of my favorite Tibetan journals last week and then spilled tea on it, so it seems like it's time. College was the era of recycled paper journals from B&N, half page notebooks, and IHP journals. After college was the time of the little Tibetan books, and now may be the time of the moleskin? We'll see how it goes.

Zoe and I had a great talk about "imaginal worlds" last night. It's something that her myth and magic professor from Brown has taught her about, and reminds me of Greenfeld's idea of culture. Maybe culture is a web of shared imaginal worlds? Does culture shape how we act or is it just a manifestation of our emotions that would happen regardless of culture? Someone can be angry at their mom, at injustice, or at a shitty driver, but it's all still anger. I'd assume that the physiological processes in the body and the brain are the same. However, culture and traditions do affect what you do with that anger. Some people might be raised to react, others to suppress, and others to channel. See this article called Culture and the brain in the Tufts Alumni magazine for a summery of some the research that's done on this. I also highly recommend an article in the New York Times Magazine called The Americanization of Mental Illness. It offers some interesting ways of looking at how experience and the processing of emotional stimuli can vary depending on culture.

Enough of this for now. Day 1 of feeling more fulfilled at work is going well, good practical goals and good mindset. Thanks :)