The Elusive Ment-gasm

I got close today; yes that is how I will start.

My twisted friend defined the mentgasm simply as a mental orgasm, a euphoria secondary to intellectual stimulation.  Mentgasms occur in conversations and epiphanies, solo or aided.  I have found this a rare gift.  Unfortunately for me, most things are not stimulating.  This is the reason I so long for school and more school - mental stimulation.  It is rarely at work, at home, at church; it is rarely anywhere I am.

Now, granted, I have a tendency to return conversations to the 'shallow end' by wise-cracking.  Depth is intriguing but tends to foster a form of intimacy I do not always want to allow.  In a manner of speaking, I think some mentgasms occur in the sharing of guarded information.  I guard very well, and for a friendless fellow guard too closely the contents of my uninterested life.  Hence the elusive mentgasm.  It is like my sense on procreation, I want it to happen even though I do everything to impede it.

I spent the evening with the international graduate student group from school.  A group of strangers (Kenya, Zimbabwe, S.Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Afghanistan) met in a (perfect place-) local International house of pancakes (oh the non-irony!) and discussed individual and national histories.  We discussed geopolitics and culture differences.  Nationalism and the lack thereof.  There were books mentioned, we compared towns, cities, backgrounds, events.  It was great.  It was new, but it was old and familiar.  I felt like I belonged away from here again.

There is still one mentgasm I seek, one so close yet so far.