Book Progress #44

Lately it has been difficult to work up the motivation to work on the book. My free time is so fragmented that I rarely have the ability to sit down and concentrate on what I'm doing for more than an hour or so. The fact that it gets dark by about 4:30 does not help, either, as it makes me feel that the day is essentially over even though I have a few hours (depending on the day) to work. I really do hate autumn and the winter here.

My wife does not let me get away with moping around the apartment, though, and at her behest I worked for about two hours last night. I honestly do not think that I would be able to work on this project without her support and encouragement. Knowing myself (and what I have done in the past), I would probably write about about 2 chapters, decide that it was all rubbish, and give up if not for her insitence that I am capable of writing something worthwhile.

Indeed, there is nothing so disrupting for me than a fall college semester. I am constantly running in and out of the apartment, eating meals when I can fit them in at odd hours, working three full days a week, and generally feel run down at the end of the day despite a lack of any real physical effort. The near future is not giving me much reason to hope that things will be better, either. I'm going to have to take a year's worth of physics during the summer to finish my degree, and once I graduate I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't imagine any graduate program that would take me at this point, and should I find a job it will probably be another temporary job that wears me down. There are more closed doors than open ones.

This project is more than a hobby or something I simply enjoy doing during my free time. I have been working at it, even agonizing over it, for so long because it holds some small opportunity to help me do what I want to do with my life. I have not had a conventional education by any means, and it is difficult for me to escape the mistakes I made, but I am desperately trying to overcome my own past. I can't go backward, only forward, and this book has the potential to get me headed in a better direction. The hard part is pushing through the self-doubt and finishing it.

Here is the Wordle for the last iteration of the human evolution chapter;

title="Wordle: Human Evo"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/322868/Human_Evo"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

For previous posts dealing with this project, see the "Books" and "Great Book Project" archives.

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