The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living - Socrates

For some reason, I resisted the idea of a blog when Mel first suggested it to me. Actually, I shouldn't be too surprised - I tend to automatically resist other people's suggestions for me. I'm generally able to appear open minded, not offend those who make the goodfaith suggestion, and yet remain elusive and noncommittal enough to not feel bad about having no intention whatsoever of following through in what - in most cases- is pretty good advice. The result is that I can remain blissfully unoccupied in my free time.

The strange aspect of resistance to the blog idea is that I've done essentially the same thing in the past. After Mom and Dad moved into their new house early this year, I reclaimed the 4 volumes of journals that I filled with daily writing during the year that I lived in Kaliningrad, Russia. From August 1994 to July 1995, I faithfully recorded my schedule, activities, travels, thoughts, hopes, fears, and tribulations in my "dnevnik". The Russian word seems to add more gravitas to what is actually a stack of old-fashioned speckled-covered composition notebooks. Regardless, I consider the daily record of my time in Russia as one of my prized possessions.

Invariably, prized possessions occupy places of honor and don't get the chance to do much else. In my case, I hadn't opened the journals even once in the intervening 9 years. Recently, I flipped through a couple of volumes and vividly recalled people, places, and events that would have never have come back into my mind otherwise. Somehow, that ruled paper and BIC ink conjures sharp mental images undulled by 9 years time and several thousand miles distance. More eerily, I feel completely different when I read those passages - like a medium contacting a younger, different self. Somehow, reading those thoughts makes me anxious - unsettled - the same physical reaction I get to strong coffee on an empty stomach. I haven't been able to read more than a few days entry at once.

I wrote daily, and then I never looked back. I loved the introspection that a good recap of a day provides. It forced clarity, revision, concise thought, analysis - an opportunity to record visceral feelings and conversely, the chance to examine events as an observer.

In the past 9 years, I have drifted from that exercise, the daily exorcise of writing, and become a little rootless. Introspection is a little less frequent every year, time horizons have shortened, my frame of reference for emotion and feeling has become unanchored. I let myself determine my standpoint at convenient, shifting, intervals - and not necessarily the product of careful exposition. In all, I've let life get a little less rigorous than I've always thought it ought to be.