Not so Daily Blog

My good intentions to update this blog daily have succumbed to the workload (which is always ridiculous, though it goes in cycles, the middle of the month and the end of the month being the most absurd periods), the settling down of a new experience in my life to the monotony and drudgery of a daily routine (the familiar is no longer novel, and furthermore inhibits my awareness of the complex novelties that make up my natural surroundings), and a complicated ambivalence on my part that has me suspended in a strange limbo between 1. wanting to be with my family and not wanting to be here, and allowing my emotional state to languor in negativity; and 2. wanting to be here and fully participate in my present situation (which is chock full of blessing, opportunity, and potential). Living in this ambivalent place, I’ve found, has a tendency to encourage my procrastination (for example, delay my blog entries until they simply don’t get done), further dilute any strength of discipline that existed in my will (little enough already, to be sure), which factors work to inspire the self-judgmental more exacting rational critical voice in my head to beat myself up. Since all this tends to reduce the estimate I have of myself compared to the daily, weekly or monthly (not to mention annual, but that’s another story) end-states I have in mind for my mental, physical and emotional well-being, I am tending towards NOT being emotionally present vice being emotionally invested. Call me a “coward,” if you will—certainly well deserved, as I’m finding that courage is not something only utilized by heroes in “fight or flight” situations, but something that is (or is not) utilized every day by ordinary people (often the most unsung) to practically live out their convictions (which are God given, not self derived) in the face of adversity (which will always exist when an adversary exists).

Attempting to comprehend my expressed outlook is probably no less difficult than diagramming the preceding sentences, feel free to attempt either, both, or neither.

Semper Fi, Jon G.