Whichever Way the Wind Blows...

Is it just me? Or is anyone else feeling a bit... unsettled lately? Indecisive? Overthinky? Alternating between lethargic paralysis and impulsive action, quickly followed by regret, and then further paralysis, ad infinitum?

Do you have any important life decisions you just can't seem to make? 

Or maybe it is just me.

Case in point: this blog. I started it up again on a whim. You may notice I went ahead and changed the scope and the title, so I can post about whatever the hell I want, not just health and fitness. Chatty, my Cheerfully Incompetent Research Assistant, helped me construct a new header. Which, after many iterations, still came out looking super crappy. Too small and cramped and blurry. Oh well.

Will I perservere and fix it? Or maybe change the title again? Stop blogging? Write more fiction? Stop writing entirely and focus on trying and failing to learn Spanish?

Oh, and speaking of Spanish: Will we move to Spain full time? Maybe to San Diego? Or keep going back and forth between two lives in two different countries indefinitely?

I can't seem to make up my mind about anything. 

Actually, that's not quite accurate: I make up my mind all the time. Then change it. Then change it again and again.

So what's going on? I don't know for sure, but I do have a few theories.

 

Theory #1: My Developmental Stage  

We tend to think of developmental stages as phases that children go through. Remember when you first heard of Freud's creepy Oral/Anal/Phallic/Latency/Genital stages? Eww, right? (I think they're bullshit, but that's a rant for a different time).

But adults go through various stages too, as you can appreciate by comparing your average 20 year old with your average 80 year old. Are they really beings from the same species? 

So I'm 65, and recently retired, and I'm lucky as hell to have so many cool options as to what to do with my time. And yet with freedom and lack of outside structure comes... a lot of decisions! When your ability to eat and pay rent depends on you doing whatever you signed up for, work-wise, you may resent it but you're not faced with the daily question of what you should prioritize. It's a wonderful problem to have, truly, but it's a little sobering to discover what a flittery flighty flip-flopper I can be with no-one telling me what I have to focus on. 

Theory #2: Sustained Efforts Yielding Annoyingly Shitty Results 

So here's an ugly truth I'm starting to face: I'm not as good at stuff as I hoped I might be. When you're looking forward to the freedom of retirement, and activities you'd like dedicate time to, it's easy to imagine that putting in a fair amount of effort will get you some really rewarding results. Whether it be golf or gardening, cooking or crafting... you put in the hours, you get better and better and start to feel a little proud of yourself, right?

Well, let's pretend I'd been dedicating my time to gardening instead of writing fiction and trying to learn Spanish. How long does it make sense to keep digging up the earth, sowing seeds, watering, weeding, and pruning if all you end up with every season is weeds? 

Okay, so it's not quite that bad. I've enjoyed the learning process. But writers of novels need to find readers of novels, and speakers of Spanish need to be able to understand actual Spaniards when they spew garbled sounds at you at lightning speeds, and without achieving either of those benchmarks I do wonder if it's worth it. Should I ditch those pursuits and spend time on volunteer work instead? Or learning to be really bad at some entirely new endeavor? Pottery? Photography? Singing in a choir? Cooking? Napping? 

Theory #3: These Are Extraordinary Times 

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So yeah, the world, and our country in particular, really sucks right now. I won't go into my usual rant, but you know exactly what I mean. (If you're into political rants, join Threads! Over there I'm Jantankerous). Not only does it complicate our life-planning and decision-making, it breeds a depressing sense of impotence and doom that can seep into all areas of life, even if it's hard to make a logical connection between a totalitarian takeover, and whether or not you should change up your exercise routine or try to figure out what the hell a Substack is.

Is anyone still out there reading? Are you feeling at all unsettled lately or is this just a me thing? BTW, I can't tell you how grateful I am to the few who brave the comment section, you folks absolutely rock.