Tag: life

Do, or do not, …

I’ve been watching movies. The past three nights I have watched the first 5 episodes of Star Wars. I’ve never seen them back-to-back before. The series is outstanding when watched in order. Even better having watched a bit of The Mandalorian beforehand.

I watched Jaws last Saturday night. I always get wrapped up in Quint’s story about his experience on the USS Indianapolis. He gives me chills when he tells it. And every time I wonder whether the fate of those sailors was punishment. I heard once that Oppenheimer felt great regret for his involvement in the making of the bomb. I wonder whether Feynman did, too. I really like him. He saw the world as a beautiful and wondrous place. How could he not?

No sense wondering whether the evils that combat evil are justified. Maybe Spock was right. You know, “The needs of the many,…”

I have read about the tunnels in Japan. My brother saw them. He felt the evil living in them, and he was terrified.

I don’t like to think about such things. I’m not qualified. I’m more of a Yoda fan.

“Train yourself to let of go of everything you fear to lose.” That’s my favorite Yoda quote.

He told that to someone powerful who felt too much. The man’s fear turned to hate, just as Yoda said it would, and that man’s fear destroyed his very soul.

Fighting fire with fire is a response to fear, is it not?

This is too much to dwell on on a Tuesday night before bed.

cleaning the house

When cleaning my house I begin with one task. Generally picking up all the trash. Then when my house is fully clean, I assure myself I’m going to keep it this way. How hard could it be? And inevitably, the house is a wreck by the end of the week. But really. How hard could it be to throw the trash out in the first place? To put something back? To sweep a room at the end of the day?

I have a big house with only two people living in it. We aren’t lazy, we are busy and tired. But honestly. How hard is it to get up and throw that napkin away?

These are the things I think about when cleaning. Then when I’m living in my newly cleaned house, I am so comfortable that just one napkin on the side table isn’t doing any harm. Leaving my shoes tossed on the floor next to the couch is an easy fix. Putting that dish in the sink? So simple to deal with. Later.

My house doesn’t get fully clean until I’m on vacation because I clean in chunks. I’ll get up and do a couple things, then go about my day doing whatever it is I want to do, which usually involves nothing at all, and then I clean a couple other things. I keep this up until the house is worthy of visitors and, frankly, of me. This process takes a long time, and it can’t happen when I’m not on vacation because the energy it takes to throw even that one new napkin away is too much to handle. But it’s not really. I just take advantage of my evenings to do nothing. And therein lies the problem.

If I do just one thing a night, I should be good.

This is where my past self would link the keeping of my house clean to something else, making a profound statement about life. But I don’t have it in me today. I’m just going to sit here and take advantage of my time to do nothing. I can write later. After all, what is writing but tiny words strung together? So easy.