As I prepare to depart for Istanbul, I am putting the majority of my creative energy into annotating the texts that I read over the course of the past year or so. I can’t take everything with me that I want to write about, and there are so many books in my inbox that I haven’t even got to yet! Nevertheless, I expect that this winter will be long, cold, and dark—with a lockdown or two thrown in for good measure—so I want to bank up as many notes as I can before I leave.
Perhaps this is a cop-out, and I’ve gotten lazy with my practice. I sometimes feel this way. But, in the end, what I am really doing is prioritizing other things, such as saying goodbye to all my friends and favorite places here in Philadelphia. There will be more time to write when being out and about is less pleasant. Especially if this year is not a repeat of last year in terms of my mental health, when I sank into a funk that made doing much other than my work—what little I could accomplish even there—nearly impossible. With the help of my nearest and dearest, I pulled through all of that, and with this blog and numerous creative pursuits to show for it.
At any rate, I’ve also decided to spend much less time on Twitter—even going so far as to give control of my password to a friend—and the positive effect on my ability to concentrate is notable. This scares me a little bit, because I do like Twitter, and it can be a useful tool professionally. But I have a tendency to let it absorb every spare moment of my day and to dominate my thinking—what if I tweeted this, or that, would people respond? (And “oh, god damnit” if they don’t!) Not an energy I really need in my life, to be perfectly honest.
So for now, I’m going to keep laying track. This week I conducted my first subject matter expert interview—off the record, for now—for the Da Sheng podcast project, and I’m working my way through annotating one of the most important books that I read in the past year. It feels good to focus and work toward something concrete. I’m going to stick to it for now.