The Man in the Mirror

Today I stayed home because anytime I sat up I felt overwhelmingly nauseous. In truth, I have felt something coming over me since Sunday but have resisted submitting to it until today. My body was achy and tired, food neither tasted good nor settled well, and everyone who saw me told me I looked like hell. Anyway, clearly I did not get much done today except for reading, though I have enjoyed some rather interesting twists in W&P that sustained me through the parts of the day I was not asleep. Inspired by some of those transformations, I realized that I too desired a change in my life and shaved off my beard. Though this act is purely symbolic, I find it helpful as a start. However, I desperately need to find something to sustain me besides work and fiction.

I have many things on my plate at work but am not feeling as productive on a per hour basis as I was when I first arrived in Bonn. There are a lot of smaller projects I could do quickly and just have not had the energy to get done. Many of them rely on things not yet published, but the longer I put them off the further they are from my mind. However, in general I have many things coming to fruition professionally, so I cannot really be dissatisfied there.

Personally, I just feel kind of empty right now. As a kid I had all sorts of strange diversions like climbing the tallest trees in my backyard, bird watching, teaching myself to pick locks, playing endless hours of basketball, waterskiing in the summer, juggling, splitting wood and riding my bike all over town. In college, I joined a bowling league, learned to play the drums, took golf lessons, ran for president of my university, stayed an active member of student congress and campus committees for things like my college and the library, solved the Rubik's cube, and learned how to scuba dive. In graduate school, I have brewed beer with a friend, learned to cook, tackled almost any crossword I could get my hands on, learned to play chess, hosted game nights, taught myself a little harmonica, volunteered at a science museum, tutored people regularly and towards the end had a dog to entertain.

Here, beyond my continued mathematical edification, I feel like I have very little. My hotplates do not let me do much culinary exploration, travel is great but cannot be constant, reading provides one outlet but not any real release. The economic crisis has provided me with a wealth of new information and insights to explore, though even the prevalence of new and interesting ideas there has started to wane. If I had anywhere to practice, I would love to start learning the violin. Though I would never be any good, it is my favorite instrument and it has long been a dream of mine to learn. Anyway, I hope with the now much younger looking face staring me in the mirror every morning, I will find the energy and drive to figure something else out to do with myself. Any ideas from anyone out there??