It’s 5:30 AM and the sky is a deep navy blue. I think it’s supposed to snow again. I imagine the Evil Meteorological Overlord perched upon his throne somewhere on Mount Crumpet, fiddling with his weather machine. He giggles with derisive laughter as he yanks upon a giant lever, swinging our climate between extremes.
I know he’s a controversial figure, but sometimes, I agree with Jordan Peterson. A good cure for depression is to clean just a little bit of your room. Then reward yourself. The question is, what is the reward? Does playing games give me pleasure, or do they just kill time? Getting an old DOS or arcade game to work on my phone through an emulator is much more satisfying than actually playing it. So many things these days feel like they’re just killing time rather than being a reward.
It annoys me that productive creation creates so much mental burnout these days. When I started my current book some twenty years ago (as I said, I was on a Vonnegut kick at the time), I intended to let the story go wherever the muse took it without concern for marketability or censorship. That’s why it’s twenty years old, though. I got about halfway through within a few months and had no idea where to go. I read once that writing without a plot is like pouring water on a table, watching it flow everywhere, and then feeling frustrated that it has no shape. Obviously, I have sculpted it (and other books) into a plot, but the gears of my mind grind and screech whenever they change direction.
I want to walk through Coney Island but I don’t feel like driving there. Well, I don’t feel like searching and paying for parking. The problem is that while driving takes maybe a half hour, the subway takes two hours each way. Perhaps when I’m feeling better, and the Evil Meteorological Overlord isn’t quite as cantankerous.
-Tony
No comments:
Post a Comment