The Law of Undulation

[flugendorf]

 (Which has nothing to do with anything except C.S. Lewis, but it comes to mind by analogy.)

There's this ridiculous entry that I've almost written - several times this year.

You cannot pay attention to Donald Trump's administration and the other bizarre things for all your free time.  The times bear watching - and need news-spreading, and general awareness, and incipient activism - but you will go crazy.

You have to turn to the things that maintain you, to the things that divert you, to the things that recharge you.

You have to undulate.

Which is a good general personal subject to take up.  So I happily tap away about the things that I occupy my head with, the strange projects through the year, work matters (which certainly count as an obsession), and suchlike.

Each topic is fun, slightly absurd, engaging.  It goes well.

But each time - probably it's me - I find myself freaked out by the developing total.  Each recharging occupation comes through clearly and happily - but when they are collected together in a single presentation, when I am looking at them as at a row of book-spines in a set, my eyes start seeing just how much in need I have been of diversion.  And it is not a thing of which I like to be reminded, and the array starts to look hectic and alarming to me, and the undercurrent of obsession I applied to each particular thing becomes an overcurrent, and... and I leave off finishing the entry.

Again. Perhaps four or five times now?

And I am not sure that a reader would even notice anything out of place. :-)

What's wrong with all this?  There shouldn't be anything.  Really the major roadblock is an impulse to be encyclopedic - which makes a large objective in the first place, and which in this case creates whole new problems.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing about little individual subjects.  I usually have.

But a larger problem is that my connection with my writing side has become attenuated enough that it can be prey to these weird little problems, or others.

There's no denying it.

Look at what I've written in here. A couple of old light entries - and then all there have been are two entries that were driven out of me by special extreme personal low points, one of which I kept private, the other of which I've just now made private because public lamenting is demoralizing to the lamenter and would have an unpleasant effect on anyone else.  Low points are very articulate, but it's not really a good idea.  But the point is: I shouldn't need to be driven to write.  I never used to.

I should beat the path wide again.

The constant background irritation: I need to find work more frequently.  (The accompanying reduction in, not exactly free time, but unclassified time will go down just great these days.)  But I need to add another pressing irritation.  I need to write regularly again, whether or not I feel like it.

Here?  Somewhere.

My old Open Diary file should prod me.  And some of my Prosebox entries here and there.  I should do some re-reading for inspiration.  I used to be better than this, and I don't remember having a stroke.  And, when I've looked over some of my OD entries... it's struck me that I used to do some bad writing back then.  Just, ouch, that needed another pass.  I should see how I do now.

Finding paid work ought to help immensely. Writing in inadequate chinks of time always seemed to ease things.

Darn you, Mom, don't pipe up bemoaning my shortcomings!  I'm ending on an up note here.

Oh.  Back to the title.  Undulation is natural, in every area.  But it's about time I undulated back the other way.