Living with Contentment
“I have lived with less than I need, and I have lived with more than I need. I have learned the secret of walking the road of life. Whether I am well-fed or hungry, whether I have more than I need or not enough.”
— Small Man to the Sacred Family in Village of Horses (Philippians 4:12 First Nations Version)
I have seen and heard the famous sequel to this verse used as a motivational statement so often that the context quoted above surprises me. Paul does not say “I can do all things through Christ” after listing his staggering achievements and hardships. Instead, “all things” in this context refers to literal things: his material needs. What can we learn from this during lent?
February actually felt like winter, both physically and spiritually. I felt like I was hunkering down and just surviving. Nothing extreme happened, but I just barely maintained a writing habit. This month is looking pretty busy as well, but I'm going to try and keep chipping away.
Well, what a month. I feel like I am just now getting over the hangover from 2023. I turned 30. All my creative endeavors were a struggle, but I struggled on. Not looking forward to this year because of the election... But I have decided to show my work by my actions rather than my words, as far as that is possible for a writer...
It came out a while ago but you remember before you had a son that you liked The New Order so you get it on a sale because you are a Daddy now and you can't let your money show that video games are a priority even though sometimes it feels like they are the only place you are really important or needed.
Another year has gone. Didn't get much done in December as the latter half of the month was all for family. Did a lot of traveling. Tiring but worth it to share the joy of our kids. I have been reflecting on how, when we meet with family, we are often just as challenged as we are refreshed; and I am sure some families are more often challenged by each other. Living apart (in our case in different states), means that we develop different routines that are not always good for us. What we eat, when we get up, the things we meditate on and distract ourselves with. Visiting family can help us reflect on our strengths and weaknesses, if we take enough time to stop focusing on others' deficiencies...
Wow, November went fast. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Thanksgiving cut into writing time and overall productivity this month — but seeing family was worth it.
“Now what you need is some old coat hangers. Put 'em in your trunk in case you get the midnight special.”1
“I still don't know what you mean.”
“You will, and you'll need those coat hangers to wake you up if it comes.”
Book 2/3 and Audiobook
I have decided to start doing semi-regular updates for what I am working on and what I am reading and consuming. At most I will publish one once a month.
Content warning: This essay contains discussion of rape.
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, after Tess tells her new husband that she is not a virgin and he rejects her, Thomas Hardy describes a scene in which the husband sleepwalks, carrying Tess through a field, over a river, to an abandoned stone coffin outside of a run down Abbey. He lays her in the coffin and falls to the ground asleep. Then Tess sits up in the coffin. This scene is one of Hardy's “moments of vision,” a moment that Virginia Woolf described as a passage in which both author and reader seem “to be suddenly and without their own consent lifted up and swept onwards.” It is perhaps vain to attempt to discern the meaning of this passage. Hardy himself, who stated in the explanatory note of the novel that “novels are impressions, not arguments,” might deplore such an effort — but I am the reader, and as Woolf also wrote about reading him, “it is for the reader, steeped in the impression, to supply the comment.” 1
Read more...
In 2244 AI generates all artistic entertainment consumed by humanity. Art made by artists does not sell. Movies, holo-novels, real-novels, games, albums, and all imaginable forms of past and future media are simulated and generated by the content delivery mechanism at the rate of a few seconds per media. In the event that a human does make something on their own, it is drowned in the cosmic ocean of content and never seen by anyone but the creator.