February 4th, 2024

 It takes absolutely no time to fall behind on the writing scheme. This morning I realize I am already behind, just after I was feeling good to have completed the first month as per plan. This requires some serious writing discipline. It is an interesting experience and one that you never really can grapple with until you actually do. I heard somewhere that Anthony Bourdain used to wake up very early each day and write. Now he was a chef, so his usual routine, as far as I can remember from his “kitchen confidential” masterpiece, was drinking until 4AM. So unless he was sleeping for one hour I am not sure how he managed to wake up, let alone write. But I suspect he did, there is no other way to be able to write a book, especially if you are in a grueling job. When I look at my job, it is not close to as grueling as a chef’s and yet he is the chap that has published not one but several volumes and I have just consistently done nothing but flatter to deceive. It is curious how I have not managed to write anything of consequence. It was a skill I think always had as I mentioned in another post. Procrastination? Well, that is a sign of depression or so I read. I think I am just scared of failure, just like I always am. Yet nowadays, I feel a distinct lack of fear, when it comes to anything I do. I just go out and do it and worry less about what anyone is thinking. I have seen bits of this with my guitar playing already. Hopefully the same will work out with my writing. One thing I have already noticed, though just one month of this rigmarole, is that sentences are flowing easier. Every thought is being printed as soon as it is formed. The mind is not going blank very much, although it needs to, to be able to germinate additional new content. The consequence of the mind not going blank is to indulge in some sort of micro-rant, and not necessarily a negative rant. It can also be an effusive eulogy but it just seems to go on and on unless you can blank your mind to enable new thoughts to form. 

I have been listening to Podcasts on and off, on the drive in. It is easier on the BYD and I just noticed yesterday another feature which comes with the car. If you lay your phone horizontally on the flat patch below the airconditioner vent, right below the central dashboard, the phone magically charges wirelessly. That is too cool for words, especially when it is increasingly impossible to find a phone charger for an iPhone 8- an ancient relic by any standards. I seem to be carrying on with it. And I think I will continue to do so. I went a different way with my Audi Q7 ( which I still have not completed the sale- awaiting a call for the Title transfer), wherein I decided to get rid of it even though it was running fine. It was all paid for, but of course I had to put some money on it on and off. But now it was gone and I had a new car which is swell but I also had to make a downpayment and lease payment every month. How I could have so nicely done without this- but too late now. I guess it is not possible to second guess every decision. I have no idea of the immediate reason for my decision to do away with my car. It was uncharacteristic. I usually keep it until it needs to be scrapped. Inherently I have always felt this is the best way to get maximum value out a depreciating asset. Any machine in a factory is run the same way. You don’t usually sell it second-hand to another factory and then upgrade to a new one. You run it to the ground. My wife also asked me why I suddenly decided to do this. And to be honest, I have no answer. I was interested in trying out an electric vehicle, was intrigued not only but he technology but also the potential savings in gasoline costs. But I could easily have waited patiently for another year- EVs were not going anywhere and in all probability would get better and cheaper with time. This is where some other part of me takes over, not the rational part in the strict sense, but a part that sits underneath my reason. This part is hard to define and much harder to control. The fact that it seems to be surfacing more regularly now, as opposed to earlier is telling I think. Not only am I seeing a tendency to just go do things, with a sense of gay abandon, but even my rational self is increasing being hijacked by unknown subliminal forces. And maybe the one is cause for the other- who knows. Psychology is really the last frontier. And I seem to have a theory in that the best way to learn psychology is to try and analyze one’s own behaviors as opposed to others. This way one is privy to the maximum amount of data, but mind you, not all of it- as I just described earlier. It is a worthwhile science, certainly far more worthwhile than any of the social sciences. We seem to have figured out how to use science in practical ways, which seems really complicated by any standards. Yet we are not that much closer to understanding our inner workings- this is the bit that needs to be cracked to address the real issues of our existence. It is not Facebook or Mobile Phones  or Electric Vehicles that will make us fundamentally more secure about ourselves such that we dont succumb to politics. This has to come from within, and something needs to be done to address whatever lies within so it fundamentally changes. Meditation may have some answers but they have not been articulated scientifically enough to command any pedagogical seriousness.  If I had a chance to read anything again, for purposes of a deep study, psychology would be my choice. But at the moment I have a job to do, kids to raise, songs to perform and books to write. So maybe another time