Good morning, everyone.  It’s Thursday again, and time for another weekly blog post.

I wish that I had more that was new to share, or at least different from what I usually discuss.  I’m quite afraid that I’m going to bore those who read my blog every week.  Unfortunately, the process of writing—at least as it refers to long novels and/or to songs written and performed individually in snatches of very limited spare time—is a long one, and it doesn’t change noticeably from day to day or even from week to week.

Unanimity is proceeding well.  I’m nicely into the third editing run-through, but with much farther to go, and with much more trimming to do before I reach my goal.  Similarly, I’ve been working (intermittently) on the remix and re-recording of Breaking Me Down, very much a personal vanity project…which I suppose could also be said of any novel as well.  The music will surely be ready for release long before the book, but then again, it’s a seven-minute song compared to a seven hundred plus pages long novel, so it’s not too surprising that it should take less time, even considering the different levels of my expertise in the two fields.

On other matters, well…there’s not much to say that seems worth sharing, but I’ll share some of it anyway.  I continue to be unable to rouse myself to get involved in social media—or social anything, for that matter.  I really don’t have the capacity to socialize at all outside of work, and I do precious little of it during work.  You are, at this moment, experiencing the most social thing I do in any given week, at least for the last several months.*  How lucky for you!  Despite ongoing treatment for dysthymia/depression, I’m afraid that the reality of both traditional and newfangled media is just too depressing in and of itself for me to survive.

Of course, avoiding them doesn’t particularly seem to help my problem, either, and I can’t blame social and other media too much; the issue seems very much to be on my end of the keyboard and/or smartphone.  After all, I’ve lately been unable to enjoy even good music.  This morning I started listening to my most reliable Spotify playlist, comprised of my favorite songs by Radiohead, Pink Floyd and the Beatles, and I quickly got bored to the point of disgust and just shut it off.

The Beatles, for crying out loud!

And don’t even get me started on the fact that when I even contemplate reading any of the Harry Potter books, or even The Lord of the Rings, I’m filled with ennui bordering on physical revulsion.

There are well over two hundred books in my personal Kindle library, ranging from Physics, Philosophy, Biology, Neuroscience, Behavioral Psychology, and History to classic literature, science fiction and fantasy, all the way up to modern light novels.  It’s hardly an unweeded garden that grows to seed; it’s a stunningly beautiful garden by its very nature.  But right now, it doesn’t catch my interest any more than would a patch of garbage-strewn mud.  I find myself (somewhat ironically) resonating, as I often do, to a line from the Pink Floyd song, Nobody Home:  “I’ve got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from.”

Only thirteen channels of shit?  If only he’d known how many channels of shit are available for us to swim in nowadays.  Don’t tear down that wall too quickly, Pink.  There are real walls being contemplated that are far more pathetic and disappointing than anything that goes on behind yours.

I just had an interesting and coincidental personal revelation:  I was considering using a particular line from early in “Hamlet” for the title to this week’s blog, but I suspected that I’d already used it for that purpose.  So, I checked and discovered that, not only had I indeed used it previously, but I had done so on August 23^rd of 2018, one day shy of a year ago.  That’s weird.

I’m not aware of any particular reason why late August should trigger such specific associations for me.  It’s not as though I have “end-of-summer blues”.  I live in south Florida, for crying out loud; the end of summer is when the weather gets more pleasant.  And it’s been many years since I needed to feel despondent about an upcoming academic term.**

Now that I think about it, though, this isn’t the first time since last August that I’ve considered re-using that line in the title of a blog and had to go back to catch myself.  It’s one of the most well-known of Shakespearean quotes, trailing behind only that most famous soliloquy from “Hamlet”, a few from “Macbeth”, and perhaps some smatterings from “Romeo and Juliet”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and maybe “Richard III”.  Oh, well, I’ll just go (or will have gone, really), with a portion of a quote from “Henry V”, instead.

Ironically, and regrettably, I can find no interest in actually reading any of the aforementioned plays.

Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace this morning, it seems.

TTFN

*No, let’s be honest; it’s years, veering towards decades.

**And, in all honesty, I never once dreaded the coming of a school year, whether primary, secondary, university, or professional school.  It’s always been something to which I looked forward eagerly.