Friday has arrived. It is here. I’m already thinking about the weekend. Friday is a day of choice and planning full of potential and promise. You have to make everyday a day of choice. That last sentence is a pivotal part of being present. That is a key element of beginning to understand the difference between being present in moments driven by choice and being driven by routines. It could be a banality so person that the same daily routine predicts the future. Outside of that stale lack of imaginativeness driven by routine, right now the door is open to endless possible paths forward for the weekend. In this time of pandemic the number of choices is smaller, but the number of possible paths forward remains extremely large. One of them even could potentially be a perfect possible future. The number of things that could be worked on is very large. That door open to a bunch of possible paths is what has me thinking about weekends and the world of possibility. From that place of hope and promise it feels like so much could get done. It could be the two shots of espresso or maybe the day is just off to a really great start, but my expectations for the day are really starting to get out of control.
Over the course of the last 50 days I have been sitting down and actively working on writing a little bit of prose every morning at the very start of the day. The first thing that happens is that two shots of espresso are made using my Nespresso Expert machine, but after that the writing starts. I’m using a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard plugged into my Corsair cube computer and half of the 38 inch screen to write. For some ineffable reason writing in the middle of the 38 inch screen is really off putting and pretty much forbidden as a way of making art at this point. The word processing document has to be on the right or left half of the screen to be functional for my writing sessions to be productive. More often than not the word processing document ends up on the left side of the screen. That seems to be my most natural writing setup. Each time I sit down the goal is to start writing and produce a solid page of prose. For the most part that means writing 3 good paragraphs of thoughts and reactions to the world around me that catch my attention at the time. Writing from a pure stream of consciousness is something that took a little bit to get used to doing, but after you start using that method of writing it takes over. It is a very hard writing mode to shake.
Going back to a more structured method of prose is something that only happens during the periods where I work on academic prose. Even in those very focused moments it is harder than it should be to stay within the structured academic formats. For better or worse that pretty much requires an outline and a lot of focus. Most of the time my major writing efforts are drafted from start to finish in one epic writing session. That is how my moments of extreme creativity translate into written projects. It typically happens with a fast start and a furious amount of writing output followed by a ton of editing and rework to get the prose modified into a more academic format. It is something that needs to happen again this month at some point. Perhaps this weekend will be the time where something goes from nothing to something and an academic article starts to take shape. Now could be the time to make that happen. Only a lack of imagination and procrastination will block that possible path forward at this point.
On a side note, back on July 4, 1995 the band the Foo Fighters released their first album. That sentence feels grammatically incorrect or at the very least reads strangely given that the band at the time was just Dave Grohl. Maybe it would have been better to say Dave Grohl released an album called “Foo Fighters” back in 1995. Either way today I decided to listen to the entire album from start to finish this morning. During this writing session I made it from track 1 to track 8 of the album. Only 4 more tracks are waiting for me when I return to my desk after a short break. It has been a long time since I listened to this entire album from start to finish. It was probably two decades ago and the album was on compact disc purchased from a Best Buy. Strangely enough the band the Foo Fighters, compact discs, and Best Buy are still around 25 years later.
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