Cycles

I tend to go through cycles. While I maintain a continuous interest in a wide variety of fields, maintain strong opinions about politics and political economy, and maintain a strong interest in literature and beauty, the fact of the matter is, I often find myself waxing and waning in my interests.

For example, right now, I am feeling sort of fatalistic when it comes to politics. Obama has surrounded himself with advisors who are avowed Marxists, the Democrats are determined to shove a health care plan designed to drive the entire system toward socialized medicine which, of course, will work in this country when it has worked no place else on earth, and the Republicans are a complete joke, refusing to even try to actually reverse anything. The Libertarians are never going to get anywhere, because although half of those in the movement are sensible and are libertarians due to their understanding of economics, the other half are in the movement because they're paranoid conspiracy theorists. That latter group give libertarians and libertarianism a bad name, and make us all look ridiculous. Worse, they detract from the message of those who actually do find the government doing something terrible, because people just assume that it's all part and parcel of the conspiracy theory bull.

I need to be spending more time on the conference paper I have to write for the Fund for Spontaneous Orders. But I also started teaching composition at two community colleges. I am loving the one because we are teaching writing through reading literature. The other is an introductory writing class whose structure allows me a bit of freedom regarding what to teach and assign. These two classes are already starting to take up a great deal of time. ALl the more reason to hurry up with the conference paper, before I run out of time to work on it. I need to do this because I know what has happened in the past when I have had to work like this: all scholarly work and creative work end up going out the window. I run out of time. I find it very difficult to find the time to 1) prepare for classes and grade papers, 2) read and write scholarly work, 3) read and write creative work, and 4) spend time with my family (very soon to grow by one). Since I cannot sacrifice 1, and I won't sacrifice 4, that leaves 2 and 3 to suffer. And I can feel the scholarly interests waning as well. All the more reason to get that conference paper done soon.

At the same time, I can feel the creative part in my waxing. Perhaps it is because I am reading and discussing literature for 3 of my classes at one college. Perhaps it is because I am going to have a stage reading of my play "K(no)w" very soon. Perhaps it is because I have to have a 20 minute play for the DFW Playwright's Alliance meeting at the end of September (i.e., I'll need me one of those plot things soon). In any case, I feel some writing coming on (wrote a poem recently, in fact). Will I have the time? There's nothing worse than a round of creativity coming on with no outlet.

Is it odd that when I become fatalistic toward politics that my creativity rises? And when the creativity tapers off, it may be replaced by a rash of reading or a renewed interest in politics. I seem to cycle in many ways, over months or weeks or even days. Perhaps another round of plays will trickle up from my brain's maze.