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Prompts help you get unstuck if you can’t think of anything to write. Prompts also help to focus your mind.

There are also prompts for your day. Asking yourself “What do I want to accomplish?” or “What am I grateful for?”

These are great questions to start your day.

I’ve been living the same way for around size weeks now. Most mornings, it’s up by 4:30. Then working out until 6:30, followed by going to work.

You notice breaks in the routine, once it’s created. Any deviations seems off, and it can unbalance the day.

However, you also have to be prepared to pivot. Being unbending is a sure way to crack under pressure.

Been so long, I forgot what I was calling it. But, some things to share:

What I’m reading: African Samurai, by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard. The story of a sixteenth century slave, stolen from along the Nile. He became a boy soldier, fighting wars in India; then a professional bodyguard, working for Portuguese Jesuits; and finally a samurai under a prominent Japanese warlord. Really an interesting story.

What I’m watching: Star Wars: Clone Wars the animated series. My roommate had a frank discussion with me about Star Wars, and decided I needed to see the show. I haven’t had much time for tv watching, so I think I’ve seen eighteen episodes over two months. But it’s something.

For good sleep, try this position. I’m always trying to tweak my sleep. For several years I’ve focused on sleeping on my back. But, in my current bed setup, it just has t been all that comfortable. So side sleeping has proved to be the best bet.

Something I’m pondering: Show me your original face before you were born. A famous zen koan that pushes the mind towards our authentic self.

Life has a certain tonal quality to it. Cities and rural areas may differ, but it is all the sound of life. Life is the presence of sounds.

An absence of sound would be abnormal. What we know as silence, if we are able to hear, is merely quiet. True silence is something we mostly don’t have the capacity, or willingness, to comprehend.

The simplest thing to do when faced with a situation you don’t understand is to admit that you don’t understand it. But, it’s difficult too. Maybe you feign knowledge of the subject matter, demurring to a new topic as soon as possible. Maybe it’s worse than that. What seems difficult to do for many is to admit, “I don’t know.”

But it shouldn’t be that hard. We have narrow fields of expertise, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with admitting this is beyond your expertise.

Long time no see (sashiburi da na), in Japanese. And, yes, it’s been a while. I guess I took a hiatus while I started working for a tv show filming in the Atlanta area, but even when I did get some days off, I wasn’t writing. I couldn’t honestly tell you why. 

But here I am, back, more or less. And I’ve had plenty of time to fill the well. 

The well is that reserve of topics, knowledge, and inspiration you dive into when working on creative endeavors. It’s important to add new to it frequently, daily if possible. The more it’s filled, the more likely you are to be able to use something from the well later on. 

Some things to peruse I picked up or wondered over during the week:

• The pandemic has hit some organizations harder than others, and the world of the arts is no different. This reporting from the Orlando Weekly shed some light on organizations I’ve worked with over the years, and how they made changes to their programming, and how new funding is becoming available.
• From the Art Review, the opinion that funds should go to artists, not art managers.
• Regarding the world of my favorite beverage, it seems that drinking decaf coffee could have dangerous side effects. And while my decaf consumption is usually little to nil, it’s important to remember that everything should be consumed “in moderation”.
• Something happened in January which made many people excited – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby entered the public domain. It now becomes open to freely interpreted and performed adaptations. Just last year, Fortitude (the New York Public Library lion) was photographed with a copy of Gatsby.
• And, of course, sign up for the NYPL newsletters, with an array of options to choose from.

This year promises to be another unusual year, but not necessarily in the same way last year was unusual. Everyone was knocked off-balance by 2020, and the recovery from that shellacking is still under way.

The new year seems to be promising that recovery. Hope is shining through the seams from around every stitch, and it’s looking good. Not that we should become complacent. But, a little hope goes a long way, and it’s about time we got some.

So we’ll march through these next months, rebuilding and restoring. Some businesses are gone forever, but new ones will crop up. As restrictions ease and the threat of pandemic stops looming large, new opportunities will reveal themselves.

So, it seems that what this new year is ushering in is the new. A period for new innovation, new creativity, and new optimism.

I’ve been considering this particular day for a couple of months now. In the lead-up to November elections, it was whether President Trump would win or lose the election. In the days that followed, it was wondering how President Biden would begin his presidency.

For whichever side you fall on, the truth is that we have become a fractured nation. Split by party politics and shattered in our varying views.

There may be some, there may be many, who think that President Biden isn’t up to the task. Whether he is or he isn’t, he is the one whose job it will be to mend broken ties. It’s in everyone’s best interest that he succeeds.

The tech world moves fast. New innovation comes faster than we know what to do with it. The learning curve is steep.

Early adopters get the benefit by early exposure. Try out the the new things. Give it a chance.