Hilariously, but not really, someone has already invented the thing I wanted to invent. I actually half expected this from the beginning.
In 2009, I watched an excellent lecture from Lawrence Krauss on YouTube that really awakened me to things I hadn't kept track of. Scientific advancement - somehow I had forgotten that science doesn't stop, and my knowledge of latest achievements never was updated past high school or college.
It gives me comfort to know that out of my notice, the world goes on.
In 2009 I started the year working for a credit union at $10/hour, but ended the year at the magazine where I still work. 2009 changed many things for me. In 2008 I had decided that I wasn't thrilled with the freelance life or certainly the bartender life. The older I became, the more I found I didn't like not having a routine. I didn't like late hours, I didn't like having no healthcare, and I really didn't like the lack of a steady paycheck. But not having a routine really sticks out. I longed for a set of necessary actions structuring my days.
In a lot of ways I feel as if I've never grown up. That I am still very much a kid inside, still naive to many things, still staring wide-eyed at what all the adults around me are doing. But I found this desire for a routine to be extremely mature. It was like taking a step toward adulthood in a good way. And hey, I was 39. Probably a good time to grow up a little.
I'm slow to get there on a lot of things. And with the climate problems we are facing, of COURSE someone was already in the midst of inventing something that I eureka'ed on in my own head. I was late to the eureka.
Another thing that changed for me with time is my desire to leave something behind better than when I found it. Since obtaining the steady job, regular paycheck, and healthcare, I've become more charitable. I don't make a lot of money, but I found I could spare a little for charities I thought were extremely necessary and useful. Now, I want to do more.
It's becoming as insistent a desire as wanting a steady routine. I am sure our current political situation has something to do with it, but always having a keen interest in science and our species, I think this is what's been coming anyway.
What shape that takes is something I don't know at this point. But there are too many things going on both inside my own life and without that are making this change imminent.
I long to write about what is going on with me personally. I don't feel I can do that at this point - detail the drama and bullshit I have been forced into this year, and I'm not talking about our hijacked election or buffoon of a president. My personal life has come to mirror the political crisis the whole country is in. There's a huge amount of fodder for a writer here. There's also a looming legal shadow, where if I want to remain in the right binds me to silence for the time being.
As the itch to do more strengthens, the drama and bullshit only nudge me further.
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