Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (1931), Museum of Modern Art (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Alright," I say, deftly switching from narrative to dialog. "The point is that I've developed persistence to compensate for my consistent inconsistency. If you can't be consistent, be persistent, I always say." Or I will always say, now that I've thought of it.
I wasn't born persistent. As a kid I was wishy-washy. But one day, in my mid-thirties, I read this: "As long as you haven't quit, you haven't failed." I had high standards (and sometimes low ones) which I often failed to meet. When I fell short of any of my many standards I felt the sting, and sometimes the agony of my failure. What I read gave me a way out. It told me how I could deliver myself from at least some of that pain. All I had to do was to quit quitting.
So I made a decision. Anyone who has read my as yet unpublished book Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dumies, knows that decision is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. And decision didn't let me down. I decided that I wasn't going to give up. Ever. And I haven't.
From the outside, I am sure it's seemed like I've given up occasionally. It's even seemed that way from the inside, a time or two. But don't let appearances fool you. Or me. I don't give up. I may get distracted; I may temporarily suspend my efforts; I may even retreat, tactically, of course. But I don't give up. I persist. And sometimes, I start over.
January 28th is the data of my last post. Today it's February 11th. My plan was to write a post a day. Yesterday it might have seen that I'd failed to do that. But I haven't. Because I haven't given up.
Today's post is a fresh start. The post is a fact, the result of writing it. That it is a fresh start is a meaning, the result of a decision. It's a fresh start because I've decided it is. And that's enough.
I haven't yet decided whether that my fresh start means that I am going to post every day, starting today, or whether it means I am going to fill in the gaps so that I will have, on the average, posted every day, starting the day when I decided to post every day. And I don't have to decide, right now, or ever.
It's one or the other.
In the meantime. Welcome to my fresh start.
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