WEDNESDAY, 29 DECEMBER 2004
For me this has not been the kind of year that fills one with panic that you have not done enough. Certainly one can never do everything you want to do, and in that sense I could have done more … but I am happy with what I have indeed done, and with what I can continue as soon as I swap the calendar behind me for a new one.
So here follows a list of projects I am currently working on, or on which I have worked over the past twelve months. These projects are listed not simply to mention more than three things after such an … almost senseless and unnecessary introductory paragraph, but because I would like to complete these projects, and seeing the titles of the projects so prominently displayed may remind me that they have indeed not been brought to conclusion.
It should also be mentioned that it is a coincidence that I am compiling this list at the end of this year. It has more to do with the fact that I completed a massive editing and revision task two weeks ago and has since been feeling a little lost behind my computer playing card games than with the fact that it is always useful to compile a list of this nature when the days on the current calendar are increasingly being driven into a corner.
So, the list:
Bullets one to four: […]
Bullet five: The three volumes of my primary literary project of the past two years must be proofread, reviewed, proofread again and reviewed again, and then be converted into PDF or HTML format and burned on a CD-ROM.
Bullets six to ten: […]
And don’t forget …
Bullets eleven to fourteen: […]
FINAL THOUGHT
Some people ask themselves on a regular basis, “What should I do with my life?” Few realise that to a large extent this question can be reduced to the literal and figurative next few hours.
It is now Friday morning, 31 December 2004 at 01:34. I will go to sleep in the next 26 minutes and hopefully rise again no later than nine o’ clock. This will give me an hour to get coffee and food in my stomach, and to watch a little TV. Then I will have about five and a half hours at my disposal during which I will have no appointments before I have to start preparing for my two classes.
Now, I can decide to do nothing in those five and a half hours, which is what lying on the couch watching TV would come down to for all practical purposes. I can also decide to work on any of the items listed above.
Repetition on a regular basis – if not necessarily as a daily routine – of whatever I decide to do later, before I have to leave my apartment to go earn food and rent money, constitute in the larger view of things what I do with my life – since I view my income earning work as not much more than a necessary measure in order to survive.
This illustrates the value of all the items on my list: the creative work is for me of paramount importance – it is at this stage what really gives value to my life, and what I would want to leave as a result of my existence. Language study provides a challenge. If I can master my subject to a certain level, it will give me some satisfaction. It will also enable me to function better in the environment in which I live and work. With the business ideas I aim to utilise my creative nature for financial gain, which will give certain ambitions and desires, which will always cost money, a fair chance of coming to fruition. Commercial endeavours would also, if successful, make possible a lifestyle that I have defined as good – or, depending on the degree of success and what it would make possible, extraordinary.
______________________