# Chapter 1

What a terrible way to start a new year of thoughtful writing. I am not a nice person most of the time, I am especially not a nice person when I have less than six hours of sleep! I am not a social person, and I am especially not social when I am in pain and don’t want to do the things that must be done today. Far too many of you reading this are thinking, “hey man, you are describing my every morning!” and my heart sinks that you face this daily and yet I thank you in the sense that your pain helps put mine into perspective and its proper place in my day. It won’t help my snarliness very much today, snapping everyone’s head off because I am not at my best, I already feel sorry for my wife.

So the objective reality of these events and pains and difficulties is that number one, my experience is a fairly normative experience. Everyone goes through days and months where things are difficult. Yes that difficulty scales and is not the same for any two people but difficulties are difficulties at the end of the day. Two is that I am not required to make everyone else feel my pain and difficulties. Three is that I can still think, albeit through a fog, but I have possibilities that I can use to explore and create and produce and do anything other than sit here and moan and groan. Yes moaning and groaning seems to help you get through the day at some visceral level, but that is not true, whining even when warranted never helps anything. So as Bernie says, put your ass in the chair and do the work. This is assuming that you are not a lumberjack or some other kind of uber physical worker. My work is thinking and idea work, so get to it.

Thus I am, getting to it as you can read.