21 November 2015

Pledging My Time

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“I’m pledging my time

To you,

Hoping you come through, too.”

(-Bob Dylan, 1966)

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It is difficult finding the time to pledge toward contacting you, my treasured correspondents, as time goes by increasingly fast and life gets busier by the day. I am desperately behind in my writing, both in email replies and blog postings. I apologize. Part of it is my inability to find enough hours of the day when I can really focus:

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“From early in the morning

Til late at night

I got a poison headache

But I feel alright.

I’m pledging my time

To you,

Hoping you come through, too.”

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My recent routine is to completely halt most of my writing and correspondence while I am reading books/eBooks. I am a slow deliberate reader who likes to go back and re-read when necessary and take detailed notes, and it takes my complete attention in order to do these works justice.

I belong to a few local Bangkok book discussion groups, although I don’t often attend the meetings because I end up not reading the month’s book selection. I’ve always had a problem with someone “assigning” me readings, starting in junior high school and going right on through my early attempts at college. I would be assigned one book to read but I’d be drawn to another – usually one in a completely different genre and historical age. I still have that random anarchic individualistic “lack-of-discipline” reading attitude that allows me to follow my immediate intellectual interests wherever they lead. So now I also have my own hugely ambitious personal eccentric reading lists which keep me busy. I’m reading a lot of great stuff – some of it that I wanted to read four or five decades ago but never got the chance – and it’s a wonderful freedom. Pure delight.

Then, between readings, between the agonizingly complex decisions on what to read next, I try to catch up with my writing. As a bumbling perfectionist, my writing takes time to craft – though I’m pledging it to you.

Related to this, I’ve lately been ambushed by a horribly painful FMS episode, and I have lost enormous amounts of strength and energy, as well as accumulating near-crippling injuries. Back pain, neck pain – I can often deal with these everyday physical pains. But when my lower extremities are hindered, then I’m crippled. Marching is Life, but I’ve hit the goddamn Wall. I’m having acute hip pain, and simple walking around the house is difficult. I return from a simple walk to the neighborhood store (a 200 meter round trip) gasping for breath. The overall syndrome leaves me utterly exhausted and brain fatigued. On top of it all, there has been NO cool season so far, and the heat is still oppressive, without letup. I’m drained.

Well, I admit, even in the midst of my present FMS bodily pain, I no longer suffer the debilitating migraines (aka, the “poison headaches”) that I had through the first 50+ years of my existence. A much-appreciated mercy.

Time to stop typing and post this before the next wave of “brain-fog” will engulf me, bog down my writing, and delay this posting. “I’m pledging my time/ To you/ Hoping you come through, too.”

-Zenwind.

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