Me and Shunn, originally uploaded by mind on fire.
Here are two of my very-favorite SF authors, Bill Shunn & John Remy! If you aren’t familiar with Bill’s writing, I highly recommend his podcasted memoir The Accidental Terrorist (about his LDS mission) and his futuristic short story “Inclination.” John Remy’s latest publication is a short story about zombie gourmands in Rigor Amortis
I keep writing and re-writing what I want to say in this post, and it still isn’t coming out right. But here’s an attempt…
Although I’ve been “very productive” in my life these past few years–working towards my PhD, advancing my career, pursuing my hobbies passionately, supporting my family, etc. Many things still fall through the cracks….
For most of my life I wrote letters to my extended family members weekly, and dutifully visited them. For the past five years, I have only intermittently remembered their birthdays and other gifty-holidays. I rarely call. Thank you notes are mostly unwritten. When my great-aunt died a few days ago, I was completely shamed by how lax I’ve been in supporting her the past couple of years.
I feel truly awful about this, and the more I realize how terrible I feel, the more it compounding all of the other ways in which I fail everyday. Whether its missing a deadline, or blurting out something asinine in an academic conversation, or forgetting to follow-up with a friend…I mess up constantly. Constantly.
Some days I just wish I weren’t so fallible, so busy, so careless, so self-absorbed, so tired, so focused, so weak.