In this post, I stray from my usual writing theme, though you had better believe I edited this for hours before posting!
Reflection of the Henley Street Bridge on the Tennessee River on one of the stillest days I have ever seen.
You are what you eat. What you think. What you listen to. What you do.
Who you spend time with...
But you cannot help who you love.
. . .
I've had trouble sleeping lately. I've been thinking how days bleed into nights bleed into days bleed into years. How seconds make minutes make hours make lifetimes. How time affects legacies and, even, longevity.
It is easy to take time for granted, whether we are working too hard or not working hard enough.
Life is full of distractions. Take this blog, for example. It takes time to create content to make an impact to be remembered. But promoting one's content also takes time. The number of social media platforms required to be "seen" in today's world increases every day. And each of these mediums takes time away from being "present," which, paradoxically, is mandatory for the creation of good content.
Of course, it's important to relax, too. We can't always be present. Whether through theater or games or Netflix or TikTok, people have been distracting themselves for thousands of years—and for good reason. Life is HARD.
This weekend marks the start of the Lunar New Year. The holiday isn't celebrated much in the States, but in many countries it is bigger than Christmas or the calendar New Year. 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit and is predicted to be a year of hope. I (and I think the world) could use a bit of hope right now, and probably a little (or a lot of) luck. School starts next week, and I will soon face four classrooms of teenagers who, as their luck would have it, are only just starting to think about how they want to be remembered someday. I pray I can remind them of what is truly important in life . . . Getting an A in my class! (Kidding!)
Happy Chinese New Year!
The calm before the storm on the University of Tennessee campus last week.