The Undercurrent of Non Existent Momentum

Well, it is safe to say that I have not accomplished any of the previously mentioned goals I set forth two weeks ago. For that I am discouraged and unpleasantly existent ashamed of my lack of self discipline and feelings of self worth. Instead of decreasing my four bowls of pipe tobacco down to two like I had stated as a goal, this morning like most every morning before it, I stepped out to the side of the house and smoked my typical pipe in the typical way, at the typical early morning time like I have so often before. The morning sun was out and the ground and trees were damp from an earlier rain, yet like so many times before, I sullied myself and the surroundings with my smoking. Luckily, my young daughter was still asleep when I went outside for this activity.

Unlike my brother (http://frumpyprofessor.blogspot.com), who seems to have a richer, more rewarding, more care-free life than I could ever imagine, I fail at every turn it seems. I did not even begin a new exercise plan for myself. My bother smokes like a fiend, exercises like a robot on caffeine, lives life so much "larger" than I do, but I do not understand how to alter the course or path I am on. I am almost impervious to change, no matter how I would like to change. There is so much that needs to be changed.

a) I smoke. I smoke four bowls of pipe tobacco a day. At 41, that is shameful.
b) I do not exercise enough. I should walk (or better yet, run) five miles a day like my much older brother and my two sisters, but I do not. At 41, that is also shameful.
c) I do not live life fully enough. When I look at my siblings, all I see is accomplishment after accomplishment, joy after joy. For me, I feel I am a meek, little mouse, afraid of being crushed under the weight of the various larger-than-life elephants about me.

The rotating sphere of this planet seems to never align with my own psychic reference so I am always tilting and bending from the incongruent match. Besides the failures I have listed above, I am fearful that there are other behaviors of mine that are just as much failures of mine I am not yet aware of.

d) I may not love enough. What if I am not giving my wife enough of the love she deserves and needs? What if I am showering enough love on my children?
e) I may not perceive enough. What if I am missing so much that my life is flat and flaccid, my family's presence diminished?
f) I may not pray enough. What is enough for prayer? Perhaps God is angry at me for my miniscule effort, perhaps the hour I spend in prayer should be better spent in another type or effort in prayer?
g) I may not read enough. My living is from reading , writing, and teaching, yet what if I am not being what I can and should be in my career? Should I work harder and with extra diligence?
h) I may be a glutton. Compared to the famines going on around us in the third world, it seems my actions day to day are horribly gluttonous. As mentioned before, I have been (unfortunately) smoking four bowls of pipe tobacco a day, I have been (unfortunately) allowing myself two cups of coffee a day, I have been eating a small snack each evening and I have not followed my earlier plan to cut my portions down at each meal.
i) I may be selfish. In so many ways, in so may moments, I am not putting my wife and kids first, and I am not putting my students first, and I am not placing my university or community first. Instead, shamefully, I am putting myself first and that never should be. I need to be fully a servant.

I must endeavor to remake myself into a better man. I am weak and so deficient in so many ways that the momentum I need to find seems impossible.

Konrad

Spinning Wheels in Frictionless Space

There is an odd revolutionary juxtaposition in that I have been absent for almost five months and yet there is not a monumentous change that brings me back. It is simply that I now have found a focus upon which I wish to focus my attention.

Within the realm of life that is our own, we often gather with friends and relatives with whom we do not see as regularly as we would like. Such was the event of yesterday which corresponded to the third birthday of my daughter. It was at this festive occasion that I chose to not maintain as festively as I would have wanted. I unfortuantely showed anger towards my wife in that I became worried that she had spent far more than we agreed upon for some aspects of the party that I had not known about. I am always fearful of not having money to survive and at times, I my fear becomes pronounced. My beautiful and lovely wife is far less concerned with saving money and has no fear about our finances. Unfortuantely my fear made me angry and anger lead me to exchanging words with her. The words unfortunately hurt her feelings and dampened her time at the party and as you would expect,they dampened my mood as well. As the pendulum never pauses on the clock, it was nearly an hour after this exchange that I was able to comprehend how foolish I was in my fear and how we are safe financially. I have given her my most sincere apology, and I hope that she will forgive me for my transgression.

I have been thinking long a hard, and unfortunately not acting much upon my feelings about smoking. At the present time, within the span of one day I now will smoke four bowls of pipe tobacco. To my view, for 2006, this seems an extreme position to hold and I believe I should extinguish this behavior from my life. My father, as well as his father before him, and countless others in my family have been pipe smokers all their lives. My older brother (the Frumpy Professor, at http://frumpyprofessor.blogspot.com) is a pipe smoker to this day. Yet, in my fourty-one years of life, even though I find tremendous fun and pleasure when I do smoke my pipes, I also feel a sense of it being horribly wrong for me to do so. I feel the weight of society upon my shoulders as they castigate me for my habit. Even though I do not smoke publically, nor do I smoke in my home, I can feel their eye's peering down on my soul and judging me very negatively. Even though no one knows that I smoke a pipe (only my older brother, my wife, and one old friend from high school actually know), my enjoyment is dampened fully because I feel as if an outcast, a leper, an evil one. Yet, my father never felt such shame, and my older brother never feels that shame today. Yet I do, and therefore I must act.

In the past, I have engaged upon what can be an all or none approach. One time I literally took a hammer to my pipes and smashed them into bits to prevent my smoking them. Foolishly I went back to the activity within one month for I did not have the will to follow my convictions. A part of me wants to do that again with the five pipes I now own again. I should take a hammer to them again, but I do not feel my stamina is any more long lasting that it has been previously, for I am a weak soul. For the moment, I am going to cut in half my pipe smoking and will exist in a happy medium where I am smoking 50% less than I had been, and can technically be 50% of the way to where I should be, as I become a part of society again and leave this behind. I am sad yet happy to feel perhaps I am going to move to a better spot.

Konrad