Recovery

       Exactly one week ago after meeting a significant deadline, and entertaining  friends at what i think was a pretty good party in my home, I was truck by two unusual pieces of fortune. The first being that shortly after the last guest departed and I could finally relax and turn in for the night, my immune system also decided that it had earned a well earned break and let a particularly virulent stomach flu through it's defenses unchallenged. I will due the reader the small courtesy of not describing this in any greater detail than to say it was notably worse than any travel ailment I have ever contracted. The second piece of fortune was that after a lifetime of abuse at my hands, my laptop had come to the conclusion that it had done it's last noble duty and shut itself down permanently (my adversarial relationship with modern technology is near legendary).  So there I was, laid up for three days unable to eat solid foods and with no electronic means to distract myself from my discomfort. Honesty compels me to admit that at the time I was not feeling particularly lucky at the time.

        I did what all sick people do when there is nothing else to occupy their time. I slept, drank plenty of fluids, read, and thought. I thought about how much I enjoyed getting lost in a good book. When was the last time I had done that? I realized that I do not draw very much anymore either. I had gotten a laptop to write with and instead I spent most of my time basically channel surfing from video to puzzle game to mildly entertaining website. I have wasted countless hours of my precious and finite life doing this! Meanwhile the back storehouse of my mind was piled high with ideas for any number of projects and stories that would be perfectly usable with just a bit of work. Instead of putting in the effort required when I came across one of these artifacts of thought. I would sigh, mutter the word someday under my breath and go back to exploding colored orbs on a screen. I was behaving like a man who was given a treasure map and used it to patch the hole in the roof!
         I looked at my lifeless computer on the floor with it's jaunty checker-cab paint job (The friend who sold it to me neglected to mention that it was yellow until it was too late. I had to fix that somehow. I always sort of liked the results). I thought about what was stored on it. If I could turn it on one last time, it wouldn't be links to the network of distracting websites I would rescue, it would be the story drafts and artists statements, and various photo files  I would try to preserve. Maybe some of them weren't very good, but dammit they're mine, truly mine and I want them back!  (Another friend assures me that I should fortunately be able to save most if not all of these). My life was being frittered on trivialities. How had I permitted this to happen?

     As I regained my health, My sense of perspective recovered with it. As soon as I could manage I erased my access to those games that were all too easy to spend a day playing and brought nothing productive into my life. I grabbed a notebook and sketch pad from a nearby table and began to flesh out one of those thoughts that had obsessed me in a minor way for years. I did not complete it, it may be years before I can. I have at least made a good beginning and this is sometimes enough to be going on with. For now I am reading more and enjoying the slow meticulous work that must follow the first rush of a new creative venture, rediscovering the simple and easily forgotten truth that to walk a great distance, you must travel one step after another. I can proudly tell you that probably the most time I spent in front of a screen since last week  has been writing this entry. Once I saw my bad habits for what they were and what they cost to maintain, it became very difficult to contemplate returning to them. If the circumstances that led to this minor epiphany are not in retrospect extremely fortunate, then I do not understand what luck is!