Resigned to jigsaw puzzles with a picture?

So I have resigned. Again. A friend commented that it's in my DNA. Another said that I'm a bright lad and will make my way. My internal voice said: What an asshole, you're an idiot. But I've been thinking a lot recently about life and how it leads us, and how we are lead by it, or kept at bay by it. I've been on holiday for almost a month; in which I spent enough time at home to wonder about why I go home, where I met up with friends and had a jolly time, where I didn't meet up with other friends and felt sad, where I had sex in a public toilet for the first time with a stranger (technically it was just heavy petting but hey, it's my scorecard and I'll mark it how I want to thank you very much [ and yes it was stupid and I could have been arrested, and he could have been given a disciplinary warning from his company, and it shouldn't have happened but you were not there, so stop judging me {and yes I realize I have failed that wonderful self-generated 'level of standards' that you're thinking I now sunk below and have started to wonder if perhaps I'm on drugs or fallen off the track or hanging out with the wrong people ... hang on, I've run out of brackets... so this will have to do ~ on which topic, those self-created standards, I encourage you to ask yourself: who is hurt by my apparent lack of adherence to non-public sex acts? ~}]). (Can I get an award for the use of almost all punctuation marks usage in a single sentence?)

Anyway my point is that I've had a lot of spare time on my hands, and since returning to Johannesburg I've had even more time on my hands. It's been filled with a new hobby which I have taken to with my usual other-enthusiasm. That same enthusiasm allowed me to resign from my job - which brought my to Johannesburg in the first place. I sit here pondering why. Why is it that I dive head first into a new job, bringing with it my creative energy which I've seldom found matched in others. I subsume myself into my projects becoming for a few months an arm-chair expert. But just as quickly as I become an authority on say, the Boer War, I loose interest. Just as quickly as the ink dried on my contract, I wanted to erase it and find something else.

This is the exact opposite of my mother. She is obsessed with things staying the same. To her, change is the most terrifying option. I actively cause it to happen, and when I can't cause any more change in a place, I leave, and seek something else. At least in my career choices anyway. Except for one place: Lecturing. I did not want to leave my last lecturing post. I was genuinely happy there. But I had to leave because the money and the option of moving to JHB was too great. I remember saying to my boss: "The irony is, I'm the only one here who actually wants to work here." Almost all my other conversations upon terminating my work place has been "I'm leaving because I've been offered a better job." Even today when I told my boss (again... I've resigned from him before to go off to lecture so it shouldn't have come as a surprise to either him or me), I told him I was leaving to lecture.

I think this is what is called a Vocation.

As much as I'd love to think that my vocation is directing or scriptwriting or have random sex with strangers, I have to admit the one job I've returned to again and again and again is lecturing. My mom made me laugh this evening when she said: I guess you'll have to go back to preparing lectures again... Preparing lectures? Me? Lecturing is so easy that I don't find I need to prep for them. Sure I look at what I'm supposed to teach them, and maybe make a call on which film to use to do it with, or which book to quote from. But it's done in a matter of minutes, because I can see the link. And I honestly feel, as have been told by several students (held over a heater and threatened with cause toilet sex) that I get my point across, am clear, and am engaging.

Should I be sad that I'm not going to direct the next great season of 'Egoli'? Or that perhaps my scripts are ... mildly entertaining but not genius? Or should I rejoice that I've finally pinned down one aspect of my existence that I can say: Yes this is the right fit in my great Jigsaw puzzle that is my life? I think I am. I'll get to direct small things with my students, and I'll get to write a dozen screen-plays that no one will read, but I'll get to mold my students into people who can write, who can direct, who can move into the next level of television production. And that for me seems to be enough.

The rest of my universe however is not so clear, and the jigsaw is still in pieces with most of the edge... most of the edge in place. It's just filling in the pieces now... so why does there have to be so much pink? Perhaps it's a picture of my bottom as most of my life seems to revolve around it and it's ... wow. Even I'm a little weirded out by that imagery. Hmmm.... man found freaked out by own thoughts. That doesn't happen often...

So two questions for you:

1 - Reflect a little on your habits and routines. Is there a common thread? Something that repeats or that you find yourself looping back to? Perhaps instead of pulling away from that, or fighting it, you should explore it? Who knows, you might find you like it there.

2 - Do you ever freak yourself out with your own thoughts? Suffer from a sudden head twitch as your mind throws up some idea that makes you pause for a moment to wonder where the fuck it crawled from? And perhaps feel a little guilty when you realize it crawled from inside you?