I’m painfully aware that I haven’t written about my trip to the Jerte Valley, it was beautiful but I haven’t found the space I need to write about it. I intend to do this over the weekend.

The reason I write today is to register my quarterly review at work. I was satisfied with my performance and my work and rated myself highly. My bosses moreso than I. I’ve seen I rate myself a standard distribution below what other people would rate me and I’m fine with that.

This morning I saw a short with Ram Das in which he told the story of a VP of industrial loans at a bank who we bored, so he quit his job and lived the crazy life. He did drugs, retreated into the mountains, pilgrimaged in the Himalayas and all that jazz. After nine years he was back in San Francisco and by chance encountered his old boss on the street. He said to him “hey you were the best in your class at the office, why don’t you come work for us again in the same position?”. So he took his old job and greatly enjoyed doing so. The difference was that now he felt he went to the office to hang out with people he liked, rather than “going to work”.

I smiled because I could relate to the story. I also became crazy for a couple of years before coming back to work in the same role under the same boss, and I also feel the thing I like most about work is the people. Even though I greatly enjoy it now, I have not ceased having fantasies about quitting and becoming a camino tramp, to write everything I must write and to wear myself down to a pulp.

However, this weekend I noticed I can transcend the salaried/tramp duality by tramping on the weekends. My last excursion to the valley is proof of that, and I will come to write about it… this entry has looped. I know what I gotta do.