Chicken Teriyaki Bowl #7

I have a stack of books on the table beside my chair which generates guilt every time I look at it. They are all partially read, with nice bookmarks showing where I left off. They include Truman, Common Sense, Gnosticism, Wheel of Darkness and a couple of other books which I’m too embarrassed to say I read.

I can’t just put the books back on the shelf. I can’t. Their reproach will eminate even from there.

I’ve heard of people who can just stop reading a book. Maybe the book is really bad. Maybe the reader lost interest. These people actually just stop reading, remove the bookmark and put the book away and never feel a sense of guilt about it.

So the stack grows. The guilt grows and I feel itchy every time I sit down next to the stack.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. - Thomas Paine, Common Sense

This passage, read recently, brought to mind a collage of images: earthquakes in China, typhoons in Burma, flooding in the American midwest, and the American lack of fiscal responsibility which we call the mortgage ‘crisis’.

That last item seems incongruous, doesn’t it?  You wouldn’t know it by the media.

Work is very slow right now and I’ve been drifting; watching SG-1 episodes, living on FriendFeed, listening to the police scanner.  I feel myself getting dull, slumping, stupid.

But wait a moment! Today is July 1st!  A whole new month!  A chance to start something new (other than contact lenses)!

My 30 Day Challenge is creativity.  Writing, drawing, photography.  Actually doing it instead of reading about it.  Getting out, out of my office, my house, my personal comfort space.

I hear my GTD friends saying “You need concrete goals”.  Right.  Here we are:

• 3 morning pages every day
• At least 1 hour of photography or drawing per day
• Follow Emerson’s lesson
• At least 1 blog post a day (posts about my 30 Day Challenge status don’t count)

I’m not sure what I’ll gain from this in the long run; I mean I know, but can’t express it well.  Self-worth?  Let’s see where I end up!