Subpar days
Today is an exhausting day, out of nowhere. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, everything is subpar. Not devastating, not bad, just not great. And you feel it with every cell in your body. Some moments are good, but on the average, I was exhausted. And by the end of the day, I only feel enough strength to write something equally subpar. Let it be. Days like this are fine, too.
I’ve been thinking and rethinking blogging in my head. I’m writing short notes, blog posts — I could be writing something bigger, and I could publish less frequently. Bigger writing instead of these small seeds. And I just can’t help wondering, would bigger writing even happen without these small insignificant posts? It’s not “instead of”, it’s “giving way to”. Smaller creativity fosters bigger one, actually. It’s not writing small vs writing big, it’s writing small vs not writing, for now. If there’s an urge for bigger writing, nothing will stand in the way, I’m sure of it.
Not to leave it this brief, here’s what I came across today in the Paris Review issue 224, an interview with Charles Johnson:
INTERVIEWER
What provoked your interest in philosophy?
JOHNSON
I majored in journalism as an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University and took two philosophy courses. One was required — that was logic. The other was an elective about the pre-Socratics. It was remarkable. I’m listening to the professor and thinking, These are my questions. I have to stay close to these questions for the rest of my life. That class was seductive. In the journalism school, they told me I needed to stop taking those classes over there and finish up over here. So I did that. And when I graduated, I gave the degree to my dad and said, This journalism degree is for you. It proves I can make a living. Now I’m going to graduate school for philosophy, because that’s for me. I worked as a journalist to support myself and my wife while I was working on my philosophy master’s degree.
