I am reading two distinct and very dissimilar books on spirituality (or, in the case of one book, anti-spirituality). I haven’t recorded this quest, even though I have occasionally eluded to it in my writing. It’s a strange journey and my mind refuses to reconcile the different truths, wish-washing from side to side depending on whose words I’m hearing.

My original approach was to take the disparate thoughts and think deeply on them, synthesize a world view before putting pen to paper. Knowing how I work, I should have realized long ago the pipe-shape of this dream. I think best on paper—this is where I synthesize and bring together my thoughts. There is never a second opportunity for me to jot down the truths as the pass. Whether the words turn out to be truths after I examine the recordation, well, that’s why I record them. How else will I know if I pass drivel or something profound.

And there’s another reason I want to jot down these thoughts (as an aside, as if I ever write anything except asides, I’m writing these words on a brown napkin on my flight to visit Doolies. I forgot my Moleskine on my table and my computer is low on juice. My thoughts sometimes find the unlikeliest avenues for escape): I complain to you, dear readers, constantly about my lack of words brought about by my lack of thoughts. As you might be able to tell from my Doodles, I work best off a reference, i.e., something that ignites me. Left alone in an empty room, I would consternate about emptiness before running out of thoughts and fading, or more exactly returning to silence, staring at nothing, my mind as void as the room in which I sit. To not record my thoughts when given the opportunity to actually have thoughts, that seems criminal.

I say these things and I feel my ego rearing itself. I imagine the photos of these words on napkins on the site. I don’t know why this overrides my rational thoughts, but it does, like driving on fumes, these feel like the last words on any subject before I put the napkin aside and return to my unobservant, un-thought-provoking reveries on nothingness and nowhere-ness.

My conflicting course of studies are steps to enhance my philosophy and religious beliefs, and to hear my beliefs and thoughts and beliefs on beliefs (to use a Dennett phrase). I end up as I said before: wafting between the extremes, like most important questions there is not only the white and black, there’s a spectrum with many choices between these categories: (i) profound Jewish belief based on a more ontological understanding of God and the universe He caused; (ii) a rational and obvious acceptance of religion as a meme, passed down through generations through natural selection, like a virus mutating until only the strongest survive; and (3) a spiritual uncertainty that draws my nose deeper into the philosophical and religious writings. My truths (and beliefs) usually last for moments, and, regrettably, are more often based on my last meal and temperament than on clear thinking.

I carry around my writing pad but now realize that is not always enough. I need to record more, not go back and rehash moments but record the moments in mind-conversation, suck the life out of the words and replant them on the page, even if only as scribbles or stakes in the ground. My hope is they’ll guide me in rewriting my momentary truths and allow me to confront them on paper to determine if, yes, there’s something to be said there.

It turns out I did remember to bring my Moleskine, it was hidden in my coat pocket. I guess sometimes I need musings on a napkin to remind me that it’s not the medium but the feelings—my thoughts are rarely unclouded by emotion, no matter how much I put on about being a rational being, and I find that I will never understand these feelings unless I record the brief glimpses and search for any possible truths before they disappear.