on the other hand

i don't have to write at all. i don't. i don't have to put myself through this. i could live out my life as anyone else would, simply: working, sleeping, spending time with the wife, reading books, watching movies. the next 30 or 40 years could easily stretch out in this way and the world would be none the wiser. there's a sort of backward pleasure in that. an ease. i could be an ordinary person and live an ordinary life. who am i to think i could be more than that?

perhaps it's that i feel i should be doing something more with my life than i am. i'm not living up to expectations. i've settled, professionally and creatively speaking. i have it in me to be more than a medical transcriptionist.

i think again of philip roth and margaret atwood, only two examples of successful contemporary novelists with careers i admire. they have made an impact on the world. what are their lives like? did they imagine such success? i don't crave that sort of success (though i wouldn't say no), just, i guess, personal fulfillment. not so much inconsistency.

there is a fire in me. a small one, to be sure - right now it's not burning so hot or so fiercely, but the pilot light is lit. i could stoke the fire, couldn't i? as it happens, this morning i'm thinking about thinking about planning a novel. so the annoying cycle begins again. do i know enough to write a novel? is there enough in me to share in this way? why do i even think about putting myself through this?

these are questions i have, and they don't feel invalid. clearly i'm stubborn and confused. and i don't know what sort of life i want. all the same, come friday morning, i might bring a notepad to the mandolin and do some brainstorming.

on the other hand, tomorrow night we're going up to seattle to see stephen hawking, the smartest man in the universe. perhaps i'll come away from that lecture about the vastness of the cosmos feeling blissfully insignificant and drop it all again.