Notebook

I stood before the window, quietly going mad as the dusk gathered and the birds flew in to roost. In terms of writing, the day had not been a productive one. My energy had been frittered away tending to details that had nothing to do with anything — except that they had to be done — leaving me exhausted and angry with my lack of accomplishment.

I hate not writing when there is writing to be done — and there is always writing to be done, quite simply because there is no way of knowing how long I will be around to do it. If I die tomorrow or next week sometime, or even next year, what about the annoying details then? Will it have mattered that I was a good boy who did his chores?

I’m not complaining. Just wondering. If I knew I was going to die in a year, would I take a different approach? Would I let the details slide, so to speak, and do nothing but write around the clock? Well, there’s no way of knowing. Having only a year to live would also mean that I was sick, and the sickness might make it impossible to write, or to do anything else. It might very well be that, under the circumstances, I would relish the opportunity to tend to life’s simplest details. For instance, going to the bathroom without help might be an exciting possibility.

This leads me to the conclusion that going to the bathroom without help really is an exciting possibility, and that it should be enjoyed, along with everything else. We are all stuck with annoying details. Annoying details are a part of life. But what if we were to look at the details differently? What if we decided they were not annoying, but really a pleasure? To take a very simple example, let’s say we hate washing the dishes. Instead of hating the job, why not be happy we have dishes to wash? After all, having dishes is a nice thing. And if we’re washing them, that also means we’ve had something to eat — also a nice thing. If we apply this thinking across the board (I’ve always loved that term), then maybe we are putting ourselves into a position where we can better appreciate and enjoy life, and not just the parts of it we like, or think we like.