Beautiful

"An error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error."

- Ayn Rand

Get Over It

Well, it's official. A week into my winter break, I've smoked too many cigarettes, slept too many hours, and I haven't completed a single book, painting, essay, errand, or chore I had promised myself I'd do. This is not for lack of trying that I haven't been able to get myself worked up to do anything. It's the fact that I'm exhausted, literally having to kick myself out of bed each morning, and in any event that I actually try to get myself resigned to a task, it always ends prematurely. When it comes to getting stuff done, I'm a bit of a perfectionist- possibly even a bit obsessive compulsive- and can never bring myself to cut corners. This becomes markedly troublesome when, like now, I authentically want to start knocking things off my winter to-do list but, for lack of a better term, am just not "feeling" it.

Feeling slightly ashamed, and with a craving to get myself out of this rut, I decided to give my bookshelves a perusing. At first, I wasn't too hopeful that I'd find anything I'd want to read because- when it comes to books- I mostly buy things that require a certain level of thought, dissection, and additional research that would require the same amount of effort I placed in the aforementioned "just not feeling it" category. But then I came across "The Phantom Tollbooth," and thought "Okay. Why not?"

The amount of relief and instant repose brought to my troubled head was unequivocally apparent as I began to read the first few chapters. This book is what I needed and, yes- I mean that in a dumb metaphorical way too-- That is, a road to Expectation and an adventure to save my own Rhyme & Reason. (Read the book and you'll get it) See, in addition to getting more superficial things done, this break has been a time for me to dust off and re-alphabetize the old file cabinets of introspections and emotions that I've been willfully neglecting. Between digging up skeletons and attempting to clear a good path ahead of me, I've found myself thrust into a bit of a mental clusterfuck, in which every thought I've had has seemed a half-cognizant, wandering, decapitated blur, and I become abandoned to physical lethargy.

While I've never been the type, in the first place, to stay looming in my own murky speculations for too long, all the things that have seemed messy in my head are finally starting to feel a bit more at ease- and it's about time. My laundry's in the wash, bed is made, correspondents replied to, and I can go to bed without such a heavy feeling following me into my sleep. It's just a start, yes-- but it's a promisingly optimistic one that ends with me getting back to life and, with that, I can say thank you, Norton Juster, and good night.