some thoughts on productivity

Unknown

***

Not sure that i have ever felt quite this way before. i am profoundly stricken today with the sense that i have done something wrong, or at the very least, exorbitantly wasteful. i took the day off today, partially because i could, and partially with the motivation of spending the entire day writing. i have done this once before, and had a highly productive day. Such was not the case today. i struggled all day to get into a groove, and wound up accomplishing very little on the writing front, nor did i even manage to do any reading. i am left wondering if there was a certain threshold that i failed to reach. Was there a magic number of words that would have made a day off “worth it?” If there was, i didn’t make it there, and now that the day is nearly over, i am quite disappointed in myself. Now i know there will be responses to this with the character of encouragement or empathy, but that is truly not what i am fishing for here. i am not, in fact, seeking a response at all, merely musing on my own inability to be disciplined. If nothing else, i am merely writing this to have a sense that i have at least accomplished something today, and although that something is rather paltry, i am hoping that it at least assuages some part of the sensation of guilt at my own sluggishness. Count it a confession, to which no response is necessary. If you are reading this, consider it an encouragement unto discipline and productivity. i have lived today as if my time were infinite, and the result in my heart is rather strikingly sad. i pray that tomorrow God will grant me a more willing and diligent spirit, and though i realize that i have not “disappointed” Him per se, i have disappointed myself. These lessons are good, at times: they remind my heart that work is, in fact, a gift, a blessing. i pray this translates into a grateful attitude towards my work tomorrow.

***

Amon-Ra

Oil on Canvas

***

the particular, peculiar

purple bruised sadness of sunset

lies not in the light fleeing us,

but rather in whole hosts

(nations, tribes, families)

of men, we, turning, in concert,

daily away from it.

 

(and darkness, as we know,

is the time

for secrets, for shame, for

deeds best left hidden, for

theft, for stealth, for

private weeping, for

lonely bedtime sorrows.)

 

the particular, peculiar

blushing red joy of sunrise

is that of embarrassed gratitude

that when we have turned ’round again

it is still there to greet us,

at least for another day.

***