Not Writing and The Butterfly Effect

I didn’t do any writing over the weekend. Sunday morning I thought that sleep was more important than getting up and going to Starbucks. I was kidding myself thinking that I would write at home. There are too many distractions at home: video games, books, and television. This is probably the main reason I don’t write at home. Besides wanting to sleep in on Sunday, I also considered gas prices and how necessary the trip really is.

I brought my laptop and plan to write after work. I’m not sure which of my poems in progress I want to work on. I don’t feel excited about working on any of them, and I am at an impasse on a couple of them.

I assembled some submissions last night. This was the only productive thing I did regarding my writing over the weekend. I was going to mail them this morning, but I forgot that today is Columbus Day. I’ll have to mail them tomorrow. I like to date the cover letters with the day that the submission actually gets mailed. I’ll have to live with being one day off. I keep meticulous records of my submissions in an Excel spreadsheet at home. It’s the finance side of me that compels this.

I have no idea what I want to do for my next poetry coaching session on Sunday. I don’t think I’ll want to send her a poem.

A number of the blogs that I read regularly have had interesting lists on them. I thought that I would try one.

SEVEN THINGS ABOUT MYSELF THAT I WOULD NOT CHANGE:
1. I am tall.
2. I have grayish-blue eyes.
3. I enjoy good health most of the time.
4. I was born into a respectable middle class family that loves me.
5.

I wasn’t able to finish the above list. I found myself thinking that there are a number of things that I like about myself and would not want to give up, but I would want to increase them. For example, I have above average intelligence. I would like to be more intelligent. I am a creative person. I would like to be more creative. I’m a fairly wise person. I would like to be wiser.

There’s something inherently suicidal about desiring to change any part of who you currently are. If you tug on one thread, the whole tapestry of who you are unravels. If it was possible to substantially change one or more aspects of yourself, you could argue that you would become substantially a different person through a domino effect. Perhaps it would only be your memories that would ground you and prevent the changes from being utterly revolutionary.

It is also inherently suicidal to wish that you had done something in your past differently or that luck had dealt you a different card. Who knows how that one change could have impacted your subsequent life? That one change may have had very unpleasant consequences, and you might prefer your life as it is in comparison. I guess that I am contemplating the Butterfly Effect or the perils or time travel and meddling with the past. I understand better why it is so necessary to come to self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. Perhaps all is as it should be and as you really want it to be. So, am I contradicting myself by not finishing the list above? Am I saying to myself that I have not achieved full self-acceptance and self-forgiveness? Yes.