March 11, 2015

Checked Out... Checking Back In...

To say I've been over focused would be putting it mildly. I think “checked out” would be more accurate. Fortunately, in a fundamentally constructive way of sorts. Being the all or nothing person I can sometimes be I've put most all of my time and energy into work and making money.

The intentions of my last post faded like the morning mist off a lake the moment a hot summer sun hits it. Distraction found it's way into a tight fitting monocular focus albeit the occasional blunder. Small success ascended by relatively larger success deepened the drive to keep pushing. I've been more or less content with the process. Why not? How could I devote much time to think about anything else?

The end of 2014 saw me on a couple of trips to Colorado to visit family and friends. One being Christmas. Immediately after my return to Houston in September my mother came down for a visit. Aside of that, Tuesday night bowling league and some sort of daily exercise, usually a run, I've more or less haven't made time for anything else.

I can't say it's been the healthiest choice except on the fiscal end of things. A silver lining in the arena of creativity is that I have been making time for the guitar and my playing seems to have improved quite a lot.

While visiting a good friend in Colorado last fall I was taped singing and playing off the top of my head. Improv. Last week he sent me a clip to ecourage me to persue my creative potential and to stop stiffling myself within the ABC's of sorting nuts and bolts. I had completely forgotten what I had done and felt inspired by it.

The passing of time has been very disturbing to me as of late. Everyone says time passes faster as we age but I believe there is more to it than that. I can't believe how much more I use to get done in a day compared to now. It doesn't compute. Perhaps it's the million and one distractions we are potentially bombarded with each day or a quantum physics riddle in an ever expanding universe that has no end nor a beginning. How can anyone have an exlplanation for it? I feel an urgency to either call it or get on with it. Middle age is a funny thing. It's a time where one can just sort of settle and say, “Well this is what it is and it's ok”, and be satified with what it is, or, one can feel an urgency to quit wasting time and build the damn castle, lay down the perogative, or bet it all on one hand of Black.

In some ways I know exactly what it's like to be a mule with blinders. A mule can plow a lot of soil thus get a lot done but there's so much more going on in the periphery. Although I have a tendency to be self absorbed I don't think that has been much the case as of late. On a base level I've simply been taking care of business.

As of now I am trying to switch gears and come up with a plan for the rest of the year. Otherwise it will be 2016 before I know it and I'll be wondering whatever happened to the to do list I wrote up ten years ago. Well, at least there are a few check boxes.....

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