My Head's On Right

The whole incident at Virginia Tech has blown up into a bona-fide circus. Pro- and anti-gun groups are already parading the corpses around with banners espousing their views, media outlets are "speculating" about the causes and possibilities, whether or not such a thing could have been prevented, wagging their tongues about every morsel they can get their grubby fingers on about it...and meanwhile, the people who are actually affected by this have to squirm in the glare of the spotlight, and aren't even allowed the dignity of time and space to process what's happened and grieved for what they lost. It's awful to me that tragedy has somehow come to be such a spectator sport. That's...pretty much all I have to say about that.

I'm currently drowning under a mountain of half-finished projects, projects I'm running behind on, other ideas that are swimming in my head, things that need to be done, things that should have been done a month ago, things I need to remember to do sometime soon...

I've been saying forever that I need to get organized. I meant it then, and I mean it now. The same problems that crippled me in Arkansas are, now that I'm well and properly settled in California, crippling me here. I think now that I know time management is a problem of mine (actually, I've known this for quite some time now, but now I know it enough to do something about it), I should start taking steps to...well, make time work for me.

The problem, I'm sure, is that I have no discipline at all to speak of. I used to have more than I do now, in fact; I suspect that being in a relatively good life for the past several years has softened my resolve, muted my ability to struggle for something I want. There's the nagging fear, creeping up the back of my neck, that I have it too good, and that's been the case for a while now, that I'm somehow not living up to my potential by vigorously exerting myself towards something.

Now, I suppose, I can struggle in a much better position. Before I was struggling over things like having enough money to pay for basic amenities, of making sure I had a roof over my head. Now, my home and job are reasonably secure, I'm in a wonderful, stable relationship, my physical and emotional well-being is higher than it's ever been. I'm able to actually pay attention to things like...self-actualization, and all of that hippie nonsense. :)

I'm not exactly sure what to do about things, but I know that something needs to be done. I want to be a writer of short stories and novels, comic strips and books, plays and TV shows...you name a medium of the written word, and I can tell you three ideas I have for it off the top of my head. So why is none of this stuff coming out? Because I'm lazy and unfocused, which sounds a lot harsher than it is. It's absolutely true, however.

So...what to do? Draw up a list of goals and work my way towards them? have a checklist of things to be done by the end of the month, the season, the year? Buy books like Time Management for Dummies, leave notes and quotes for myself to find in the shower, in a box of cereal, in my laptop case? How can I stop being distracted by carrots and cookies? Do I *want* to stop being distracted?

You straighten out one tangle, ten more appear in its place.