Alas if only we could all see the world as Billy Pilgrim does. This forms the basis of a novel I wish to write. Will I ever get there and are there enough things to do before hand to distract me, therefore avoiding this purpose?
I am getting ahead of myself - there will be enough time for that later.
Today I finally woke up and went for a run. After shattering my Clavicle in 5 places following a bicycle accident in Glasgow City, it has taken me 6 months to accomplish any real exercise - this is a small part of an idealist regime of which many exist in a long and winding list - and I felt every single moment of it. After the first few lunging strides, a surge of adrenaline rushed my body and suddenly I was swamped by delusions of marathon-winning grandeur. Just 2 minutes later (though it felt like 20) I had slowed to a snails pace and 5 minutes after that I was searching frantically for the extra 5 stone I must surely be carrying around my midriff. Not the goal I was searching for and 15 minutes later I returned home, red and swollen like a prickly pear.
True, every part of my tobacco-scarred lungs and pulmonary capillaries forced me to taste blood and I thought my heart might implode but boy did I feel good.
This small step is my first success in self-discipline - a quality I don't so much lack but very seldom listen to. Because of this and my desire to amplify it, self-discipline has been a notion I am exploring in a short story I am currently writing. Self-discipline however, not in the physical sense but in the mental and moral sense.
It's quite hard not to be smug about feeling you have just invented the 7 day weekend - even amidst the disapproving and often threatening expressions from your friends and family.
Yet even though I am aware this situation cannot and will not last forever (or indeed much longer than a few months) I am still free to pursue my dream and accomplish my goals.
Right?
Yes, and, but.
There is a fear lurking, as hard as it is to admit to myself, that any attempt to achieve will most surely be met with failure of some sort. A secret belief that a dream is all the more perfect when realisations that it may be doomed to failure are swept under the cerebral carpet, seems to retain the ludicrous notion of a classical perfection.
And yet it is such a flawed stance! It is a shame that the impossible notion of perfection still tempts us - often to much anguish.
So, 'self-discipline' could mean being courageous with your goals, willing to admit when you are wrong, engaging in activity or quitting Facebook for the last time.
Above all this, self-discipline must surely mean learning from your experience. After all, isn't that the meaning of life? To experience, learn and grow?
Now, to say Cheerio to Facebook!
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