How Easy it is to Quit

As someone who has started many projects and not finished them, I feel uniquely qualified to talk about how easy it is to quit something.

I have three sourdoughs in the refrigerator downstairs that, if I don’t feed them soon, will expire. I was supposed to feed them yesterday, but said “I don’t want to go through the trouble.” But if I say that day after day, the culture will die out.

I have to push myself to keep the momentum.

This relates to my writing as well. If I don’t write this blog every day, it will probably expire. If I don’t work on polishing or writing or rewriting daily, I will probably abandon writing.

The things that are easy to quit have no immediate rewards to keep me going. It’s human nature to seek immediate reward, and it’s human nature to conserve effort. Doing the things that are easy to quit, then, requires a longer view and an ability to find reward in the process rather than the result.

So I write this blog daily, even though it’s easy to quit. The rewards are nebulous (I average 40 readers a day right now, but hope for more) and I find value in the experience of writing itself.

Collecting Kindness

Today, one of my favorite Internet Cats, Maya, is #collectingkindness. Toward this end, she is asking people (I love the imagery of this) for pictures, poems, essays, etc about what they consider kindness to be.

To me, kindness is giving without calculating a return, without regarding how the other compares to you relative to color, race, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or religion. Just giving, whether that be a smile, a favor, a conversation, recognition, love. No strings attached.

Day 35 Lenten Meditation: Confession

I consider myself a mystic, but I don’t know whether I believe in the God I’ve been been presented with.

I struggle. I think of all the expectations we put on God — we pray for riches, for good health, for winning the football game. Then when we get our way, it’s a miracle, but when we don’t, it’s God’s will. It’s almost as if we apologize for God when things go badly.

I can’t imagine God as a being who goes through the minutiae of our lives — “yes, here’s your keys” and “no, your grandmother isn’t going to survive this heart attack.” Nor do I think God’s taking notes on whether we’re naughty or nice.

I can’t believe in that God. If there is a God, I imagine a force bigger than all of us, a Gestalt which contains the souls of everyone or everything who has ever lived. When we die, we go back into this vast Gestalt, and are in communion with an existence so pure our spirits laugh and cry, and we are comforted by the Gestalt. I expect there to be spirits of every religion and no religion at all.

I believe that God comforts and braces us, and gives us strength for another day. God doesn’t save our grandmother; God gives us strength to get through. God doesn’t launch my writing career; God helps me see where I need to improve.

So perhaps I believe in God, just not the God I grew up with. God pulls me out of the panic I’m feeling over the pandemic and presents me with my own strengths. God doesn’t help me find the keys; God helps me remember where I put them.

I confess, though, that I don’t know, any more than anyone else does. Even the Bible is full of allegory and conjecture and translations that obscured the holy and promoted the status quo. Not knowing, I do what humans do and make God into my own image.

Day 33 Lenten Meditation: Love

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about love?

The Greeks a long time ago talked about different types of love, which I spoke about on Valentines’ Day. Here they are as a refresher:

Agape – love of humanity.
Storge – love of family
Philia — love of friends
Pragma – love which endures.
Philautia – self love
Ludus – flirtatious/playful love
Eros – romantic and erotic love.

Love, as an emotion, has the power to motivate. Storge motivates us to care for and protect our families; eros motivates us to take the risk to commit; philautia motivates us to take care of our bodies.

Love has the power to transcend. Agape moves us to do our best for others. Ludus finds us gifting others with our moments of dazzling brilliance — or our clumsy attempts at wittiness. Pragma transcends the ravages of time.

Love is one of the forces that changes the world. The other is anger; however, anger without love can become destruction rather than creation.

I’ve said nothing that’s not already been said; perhaps that is the curse of being a writer. But I write with love, and maybe that makes the difference.