TITHONUS' DIARY!!
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stalling I feel stalled in my work. I don't know how to start... I don't want to write, I don't want to read. I need some kind of... something. Which I don't know what it is. The last draft was too quick... I think I don't trust myself to dwell on things. I want to make a series of points, bang! Bang! Bang! And then be done with it. But it doesn't work for something like this... I need to spend time with the ideas, with the people, the interviews, I need to... wait for texture, or something. - Analysis is like a... ripping away of flesh. You strip off everything that is irrelevant, unimportant, peripheral, you get down to the essence, down to the bones. You read a 200 page book and write a two page analysis of it. All the texture, all the setting-up, all the... specifics of it go, you turn it into this summary, this list of bullet points. And the quickness with which you perform this grisly surgery becomes a point of pride. This is what I do without having to even think about, without even trying. I am a reducer. - I guess there's a kind of virtue in it, sometimes. But right now, I need to be something else. I need to be patient. I need to consider things, slowly, pay attention to details without immediately deciding what is or isn't relevant, and I don't know how to do it. - I think today, for the first time, I began to really doubt whether or not I can do this. That's not to say that I am certain that I cannot; not at all. But I am uncertain. It's frightening; if I can't do this... I'm not sure if there's anything else I can do instead. - Time will keep passing, and sooner or later I'll die. And everyone who ever knew me, or knew who I was, will die, and everyone who knew any of them will also die. So it doesn't really matter whether I become a doctor or not, does it? I'm doing this because I believe it's a good way to spend my time. I certainly can't think of anything better... maybe things that I'd rather be doing right now, but not as a way of life... - "I'm looking for a woman with low self-esteem To lay me out and ease my worried mind While I'm winding down my dirty life and times" - Warren Zevon |
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