I think it's been partly a healthy distraction, partly healing - probably in that kind of 'full cycle' category, in a weird way. It's very much taken energy out of the grieving side of things and parked in a bit more hopefulness.
At the end of November of 2011, I saw my dad take his last breath. I came back to the United States after participating in all the death-related rituals that helped organize my pain in México. New York City was not a place to live my mourning, and right around December of the same year, I felt an intense longing to become small again. I needed to work with children.
He's straitlaced and inexperienced, reeling from the turbulence of his family life and in search of stability. Why is he so easily pulled out of the existence he's been struggling to establish? It is funny that you say Malcolm is searching for stability, because he does find it with the Rajneesh, who, to many, would probably be judged as unstable. Malcolm is feeling disconnected from his community and his father, and, without being very conscious of it, is searching for meaning.