This morning was,

am,

overly introspective

if that’s a thing.

Maybe the word

overly

is

overly judgmental.

Whatever.

I think something about losing

last night

and tossing and turning

and tossing and turning

and waking sore and tired

has something to do with it.

Or maybe it’s the wind,

incessant,

unstoppable,

irritating,

cold.

I could reach for a metaphor there,

but I won’t.

Too easy.

Too trite.

Maybe that’s

overly judgmental too.

Because my thoughts

flowing unevenly, crashing

as much like waves

as like wind

isn’t the worst metaphor

for a morning like this.

Incessant.

Unstoppable.

Irritating.

Cold.

Though I feel sharp regardless,

like thoughts could cut,

but into what?

I developed a useful guide for my team;

refined and carefully considered.

Quality.

I feel some sense of pride of work

because I know it is good.

Sharp.

Though it is a rare problem

it is an elegant troubleshoot, and

I have solved it

for all.

And I sit in satisfaction

though others are unlikely to appreciate

its quality,

its sharpness

as I do.

What have I cut into?

Why have I cut into?

Overly introspective

perhaps

was apt.

I have a change management training coming up. It is based on the ADKAR ProSci model. I actually like this model- I had a similar training many years ago when I first started at the Division. I even read the book. There’s a small amount of “pre-work” for the training: think of a personal change I’d like to make, and think of a change impacting my work. Work change is easy- I’m driving more of it than everyone I know, likely to the chagrin of my peers. I’ll happily drag them all into a better future, though I think I’m cursed with some kind of foresight that others lack. It makes me good at what I do, but gives me no small amount of pain.

Personal change is harder. Not that it is harder to think of something- I’m well aware of my multitude of flaws, but that it is harder to just “be” different. I’ve been driven by goals and advancement for… ever. I find a lack of focus and discipline from simply doing my job. I’ve always wanted to be this, or to be that, but now I am this and that and I find myself lacking a direction of what to be next. I guess that’s why I’m always looking for new projects. I lack stillness. I find guilt in stillness- a perennial restlessness due to a lifetime of training for “tomorrow.” Brave New World’s soma isn’t a threat or a fear, it seems like a gift to release from this incessant need to look forward. My curse.

Today, for example, I’ve wasted near an entire morning, loathing my simple duties. I have no interest because they are simply the status quo- they do not drive toward anything that I do not already foresee. Some find comfort in the routine- my mother is like this. I think some enlightened student of the mind might find some connection between us, and my unavoidable rejection of routine. But the reason for the outcome is irrelevant. So I lack focus and a direction for my ambition for ambition.

So I’m asked to think of a personal change, and I wonder whether I really want to change any of this about myself. My curse is my edge, as it were, and I shouldn’t really like to lose it. But then, it seems, I’m destined for days like this where I lament and wax obnoxiously instead of just doing my simple tasks.

This is all far too long to fit into the little box where they’d like my little thoughts on what little things I’d like to change about myself. So I’ll just tell them I’d like to write more. They may ask what I write about, “this and that,” maybe I’ll say. The truth is maybe too personal, not that I actually write about anything in particular. I probably whine more than I should, but my unguided curse beckons. What else is there to write about?

The fight was fought.

Never leaving the farm

but for a moment

to return

to the end.

Almost 30 years

since the same fight

took him;

in the same place

at the end.

No fear

in her confidence

of the end.

I hope she is right,

and the next chapter

is everything she knows to be true.

And in that walk

the end is new.

Last night there was a windstorm.

Hollydog maybe hates the wind

more than I do.

But not by much.

I slept fitfully

with earplugs.

And I dreamt.

What is the reverse of a nightmare?

Some emotional high;

wordless.

I don’t even know what it was about,

just a feeling.

Random unknown

and wordless.

Then waking,

startled to the wind

and general discomforts.

Feeling like something was taken away.

Starting like a child

with unbothered history

chasing butterflies;

with nothing getting in the way

of that joy.

To something more real-

stress

and gravity.

That jarring sensation

with my typical headache

and poor sleep-

there is a reason

I try to forget

my dreams.

I’m pretty sure that I got it from

a baby.

Like a literal baby.

Bunch of nonsense.

Now

as I sit and try to type

my nose

drips

drips

drips,

and it is driving me insane

insane

insane.

I acknowledge

the vanity of writing.

Specifically my writing,

this writing.

Writing

as an art

is beautiful

and useful.

Some writing is beautiful and useful.

This

is not.

This

is vanity.

The idea that this writing

does anything

more than allow me to move thoughts to permanence

is vanity.

But I’ll allow it.

For myself.

But now I find myself in need of a justification

for vanity,

lest I lean on it as a weakness of will,

which I hate.

Expression,

as vanity,

appears to clean the house of my mind

and makes room for other

better

things.

Or at least cleans the detritus

to be filled anew.

In that

it isn’t what is written

but the act of that is important.

Apparently,

then,

I can write whatever I want

in vanity,

and a clean house justifies. Neat.

Hippopotamus.

Electron.

Fields of seeding grass.

Cleanliness.

In the middle

of a busy day.

To stay on track

it just takes a moment

to jot a thought.

Goals.

I feel tired

and unenthusiastic.

That’s not an inspirational recipe,

yet I’m here.

I’ll call it a win.

Two down,

six to go.

It shouldn’t take too long,

a quick note,

a game of chess.

Start small

and build it in

to the days.

Learn something.

Focus.

Breathe.

I should probably eat

before my million meetings.

I should probably

write more.

My family is so different

from the one before

my last entry.

The snow is here again,

so the circle spins.

I’ve not been sleeping

well.

But my cooking is improving-

Istanbuli musing.

It turns out

you can make pita bread

at 11380 feet.

That’s a pretty big number, I suppose.

Apparently,

that’s approximately the number of neurons in the human brain

and

the number of stars in our galaxy

and

the number of galaxies in our universe.

Now, I’m all about respecting coincidences,

but

I’d like to entertain a synchronistic thought today.

If I am-

we are-

conscious

with 100,000,000,000 neurons:

thinking and thinking about thinking

and thinking about meta thinking

and so on.

Perhaps, may I posit today,

those same electric signals which sit in a three pound pink-grey lump

may have connective similarities to stars

or galaxies.

While the synaptic distance is very small,

and the distance between stars is great,

there is still information transfer within each set.

A galactic thought

would likely look no more than

slight ripples of photonic,

electromagnetic

perturbations

years in the making,

but those would reach out

and perturb others

years from now

too.

What would a galaxy

slowly

think about?