Obfuscation being the order of the day (or so the Royal Decree hath stated), I will proceed to talk about November and the present dilemma: do I commit again to NaBloPoMo (as I did last year), or do I take the leap and commit to NaNoWriMo?

Do I commit to either?  It’s not like I have a lot of extra time, or fewer burdens, or a sense of ease and comfort that would make the daily task of writing (whether blog or novel chapter) something to jump out of bed for.  But I have to do _something_.  Action is the precursor to all happiness; wallowing is for pigs, or things lower than pigs, even more filthy and sallow and contemptible.  So the reverse logic would suggest I reach for the most audacious goal possible, and commit to “[writing] a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30”.  And perhaps other goals, even more terrifying in their implications.

Ugh.  The mere thought of it makes me want to cry, or vomit, or dither, or distract myself, or move to a foreign land and learn Westphalian or one of the three extant Ugric languages, and forget everything and descend through the mists into a land of unknowingness.

For I fear that I have truly opened Pandora’s box, and the dear, dreadful knowledge, the facts, the irrepressible truth, can never be un-known, the sights never be un-seen, and that a state of naïve, optimistic innocence is surely preferable.  For knowing is a powerful thing.  It is both positive (identification, classification, knowledge of how to create and re-create), and a negative thing (all the things that knowing ruthlessly implies can not be). 

If the Earth revolves around the Sun, then it is certain that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth.  Terrible finality, that, if you have the sincerest boyish hope that the Sun is indeed the actor and the Earth the stable hub.

If I am 39 years old, it means I am not 20.  Poof.  Half my life, vanished.  Vanished!  Opportunity cost analysis has never looked so bleak.

If I am in Box A, I am by definition not in Box B.  I am not an electron, a wave function, able to be in both places at once; the probability of which fluctuates with the observer. I am Here or I am There.  And being There, particularly Out There, can be a cold, lonely place.

I’ve written many times about perspective, about the need for perspective when looking introspectively at oneself, and I find myself today (and hopefully only today) in the position of the midnight tom, caterwauling on the fencepost, a fit target for curses and invective and shoes but possessing no more answers than when dusk fell earlier in the evening.  Perhaps the morn draws near.  Perhaps the night is not so deserted as it might seem upon first review.

Perhaps I’m full of shit.

Perhaps the makings of a 50,000-word novel lie among the ruins.  And, contrary to the emotional barometer, perhaps it will be a cheery, upbeat, funny novel, full of the wit and wry prose that I can and have conjured up quite frequently in the course of my blogging and writing career.  Maybe it will make you laugh, and smile, and appreciate the day just that much more, for having your eyes opened to the unique wonders present all around you, if only you could see.  If only I could see.  Perhaps it will make you grateful, or content, or enthusiastic.

Reach for the stars and risk failure?  When one has risked all and failed already, then it seems like less of a terrifying stretch.  Is it in the reaching, and not the grasping, that we truly discover who we are and what we are capable of?  And should each new challenge bring some depth and distance to previous attempts, such that they loom less large in the present, and become a treasured, albeit bittersweet, relic of one’s past?

Who can say.

My decision on a novel vs. a blog commitment comes in the next six days.  There is much to mull over.  I know not which fork in the road I’ll take, but I am more and more sure that moving ahead is the only sensible option.