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On Surfing and Reading Books

Shannon and I made some resolutions this year. We talked about them for a while and I told her I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of guy I want to be. The kind of guy I wish I were. The guy my daughter will know.

I’d like to think that becoming a dad has given me my new sense of self awareness, but I recognize that being a person on the Internet has contributed to it too. I’ve been thinking carefully about how I present myself online for years. So, there’s a real desire for self improvement behind my thinking, but there’s plenty of vanity too.

Essentially, I want to be seen as the kind of guy who surfs and reads books (although not at the expense of being a good husband or father).

I’m kind of that guy, but not to the degree I’d like to be.

Instead of surfing when I have time, I usually run. I run because it’s easy. I don’t have to strap a board to the car, or remember to put on sunscreen, or put on a wetsuit, or brace for cold water. I just have to put on my shoes and run out the front door.

But that’s not really why I run instead of surf.

I run because it’s acceptable – in the puritan sense. Running is suffering. Surfing is fun, which is unacceptable – because it’s fun. I run because it’s ok to take time for myself if I suffer. It’s selfish to take time for myself to have fun.

This is nothing imposed by Shannon or anyone else in my life. It’s fully ingrained into my psyche and I don’t like it.

Instead of reading books, I read the Internet. I read Instapaper. I fritter away time by compulsively checking Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Instagram, and email. Ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

I want to read books because they’re deep. They leave impressions on me. They demand focus instead of obliterating it.

I still want to surf and read books. I want to be that kind of guy. But I need to understand why I want to be that kind of guy.

I want to be the kind of guy who isn’t ashamed to enjoy his life. Who values pleasure per se because life is short. I want to be the kind of guy who cherishes his attention and focuses it carefully. Who doesn’t waste it reacting to the Internet because life is short.

I want to be a guy who surfs and reads books.

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Ithaka

BY C. P. CAVAFY TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY   As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.   Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars.   Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.   Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.   And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

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Metronomes synchronizing

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Process.

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↶ geometric.chairs.collection2 ↷

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You’re wondering if I’m lonely: OK then, yes, I’m lonely as a plane rides lonely and level on its radio beam, aiming across the Rockies for the blue-strung aisles of an airfield on the ocean. You want to ask, am I lonely? Well, of course, lonely as a woman driving across country day after day, leaving behind mile after mile little towns she might have stopped and lived and died in, lonely If I’m lonely it must be the loneliness of waking first, of breathing dawn’s first cold breath on the city of being the one awake in a house wrapped in sleep If I’m lonely it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore in the last red light of the year that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither ice nor mud nor winter light but wood, with a gift for burning.

Song by Adrienne Rich

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At dawn when rowboats drum on the dock and every door in the breathing house bumps softly as if someone were leaving quietly, I wonder if something in us is made of wood, maybe not quite the heart, knocking softly, or maybe not made of it, but made for its call. Of all the elements, it is happiest in our houses. It will sit with us, eat with us, lie down and hold our books, themselves a rustling woods, bearing our floors and roofs without weariness, for unlike us it does not resent its faithfulness or question why, for what, how long? Its branchings have slowed the invisible feelings of light into vortices smooth for our hands, so that every fine-grained handle and page and beam is a wood-word, a standing wave: years that never pass, vastness never empty, speed so great it cannot be told from peace.

Essay on Wood, James Richardson