Henry Miller (Manic, anarchistic, crass, melodramatic - and still beautiful and prescient.)

I couldn’t presume to say whether this is true for the rest of the world; What do I know of the richness or anemia of the life you are living?

But I do know it fits me too often. The amount of time I spend dallying about or consuming someone else’s productivity (and often, not even the worthy results of someone else’s productivity) – as opposed to creating anything of my own or challenging myself with a high caliber of consumption – is convicting.  

I find it a perpetual struggle – to collect more minutes in a day that matter.  More minutes I would be proud of or better for instead of those that evaporate in the pursuit of easy comfort (television, memories, aspects of the internet, certain friendships, certain books. I could highlight a hundred forms of lazy wastefulness which in and of themselves are not fatal but together begin to create a lifestyle of indolence.) I don’t think it’s about avoiding pleasure or what makes us happy – it’s about not wasting all of our energy on what offers vapid gratification instead of the overwhelming joy and fortification that comes through purpose, effort and depth.

Are we alive enough? What am I really pulling from myself?  Committing to, investing in, breaking loose from? What fire am I stoking? What risk am I rallying to take?

Are we really producing, paying attention, responding meaningfully, narrowing our focus to what matters in some genuine, organic or lofty way? 

I know I am not and have only the humblest idea of the grandeur of that goal and how to begin stretching toward it.  But I love the challenge and the potential of which it hints!