Sunday, August 10, 2003

I dreamt again last night of playing the piano. First, the Entertainer. Then improvisational versions of The Entertainer - saying something like "everyone enjoys a little ragtime" and then just scales and chords and arpeggios, not as a master, but as a pianist you might find playing in some fair-to-middling restaurant in a northern Michigan tourist town, who may be a music teacher and band leader for some junior high in Ohio during the off-season. Something that seems realistically attainable.   I read something recently that suggests that anti-depressant drugs help generate new brain cells.Which makes sense. I wonder if depression in our modern society, general sulleness and malaise, results from lack of stimulation, true stimulation and mental growth, replaced by gross and simple pleasures, and unmitigated desire created by lack thereof. Bill said to me a few sessions ago that I love expanding my horizons, when I talked about my fascination with "alternative" medicine. I think being on a high learning curve is necessary for my very survival. Without learning, I am depressed. Which is why I think periods when I am writing generally mark my most balanced self, because writing about my world requires consciously engaging, which means my subconcious is also engaged. I've been slowing down with the business over the last week or so, even thought about applying for a job at Wash U. But I realized, as has happened in the past, that those periods of unhappiness are not ultimately solved with the new job, some radical departure, but have more to do with general control over my own brain and body chemistry. The radical new quickly becomes boring, so it seems, when the reality is that I have allowed myself to become bored. While it may seem obvious, the idea that this too shall pass applies to macro situations as well. Just wait and breathe is a way of both letting the moment pass and engaging the moment again. It's just hard right now, as tired as I am, as much as I am understanding the difficulties and challenges the business itself is unfolding, knowing that where I ultimately want to go with it will require even more stamina than I have right now. And right now, I am just tired, this small planetary satellite resting all upon my shoulders, let alone the weight of the world as I grow this entity into what it has the potential to be. Which is not, and this is another weight, the tiny boutique shop I originally envisioned with Jans. If we're going to save people from the Convios and Kinterras and Cevents and even Giving Answers of the world, we have to bring more value than they can muster, and brand it as such. Which, to some degree, goes back to late 90's, early 00's conventional wisdom, except with the knowledge that technology is better and cheaper than it was just a year ago. 3:06:56 PM