Today I look over the last decade of my life.
If I were candid with myself, it feels very much like my decade of watching TV. I won't be too unkind to myself. It was a good decade for TV. And life presented me with some opportunities that I don't regret taking.
Writing for Salon gave me the confidence to start apply to Banff, start book projects, reach out to agents, know that I could be taken seriously. TV has a very important impact on the world, on culture, on how we think about people. But when it comes right down to it, it interferes with my sleep. And it interferes with my commitment to writing. It rewards and increases my impulsivity and undermines my commitments to care for myself, for Ben, and help build a better world.
I have an opportunity with my current work, and my current writing, to work towards bigger goals. I have an opportunity to put my writing towards creating a more innovative and equitable education system. Towards giving young girls more insight into what they can do with technology. Towards giving other countries what they need to localize and take control of their own education economic potential.
For that, quite simply, I need to sleep better than I am. I need to have mental clarity and solid algorithms that can transfer my knowledge to others.
I think back to that study that Annie Dillard wrote of in The Writing Life. About how male butterflies presented with an oversized cardboard butterfly over an actual butterfly, will choose the cardboard butterfly every time. I can't spend my life humping cardboard butterflies. Even if that is what all the other butterflies are doing.
The next decade of my life is crucial. It can determine how I spend my last decades on earth, in can determine the quality of my life before death. And it can also determine, or be part of determining, how we as a species live, or die.
