What Am I Doing Here?

In every situation I've found myself in lately, the question arises in me: "What am I doing here?" It's a valuable question, which calls me to look deeply at the present moment--because to know what I'm doing here requires that I notice where here is; no know what am doing here, requires me to look at what I'm doing.

I'm at the public library in Bellevue (a Nashville neighborhood). What am I doing here? A dozen answers fly to mind, and perhaps it is only the result of the ton of meditation I've been engaged with that I can tell these thoughts to wait their turn while I acknowledge, "I am sitting."

I am also waiting for the message that I can return to the storage unit and clear it out. But that will be the future (or maybe it won't). What am I doing while I am waiting for the future? I wasted some time on the internet, since it is rare that I get to use it. And I finally watched the videos of the incident at UC Davis last week. Our children and grandchildren will be watching those in their history classes.
And, I am blogging. It's been too long... not because of the time that's passed, but because of the number of things I would have written.

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Another circumstance that has caused me to ask, "What am I doing here?" is my involvement with Occupy Nashville. Being there and experiencing it, I find it easy to understand why I'm there. But almost every conversation I've had since October 29 has dealt with trying to explain why I'm there.
There is, of course, all the talk of the 1% and the 99% and the unfairness of it all. To say that I think these are valid concerns seems unlike me--because I think all concerns are valid. I think that even the concerns of the "1%" are valid. We are all Americans, here, like-it-or-not.

It is because everyone's concerns are valid that I am engaged with the Occupation. Finally, people are tired of jumping through hoops, of playing the system's game, to have our voices [mis]heard. "[If] he wanted something other than the obvious to happen, he would have to do something other than the obvious."* For decades or more, people have been like children saying, "ow, quit it!" and the powers that be have been like the parents, choosing to ignore the children until they just stop fussing.

[and there's the call // later]