I am starting this blog post Saturday evening after a long day. I got up at about 5 AM, or about 16 hours ago. I put up a blog post and checked in on social media. I drove to New London for an enrollment fair. I was weary and ambivalent about having such a busy Saturday scheduled, but it was a beautiful fall day, a little on the warm side. Along the way, I stopped to play a little Ingress and balance out work and fun.

There was a lot of positive energy at the health fair. I took some good pictures which I will share later. From there, I drove up to Middletown where folks from CHC were helping with Habitat for Humanity. They are in the process of renovating a really beautiful house. I took a bunch of pictures and headed off to the next event.

One of my co-workers teaches archery with 4-H. The archery club was at the Portland Fair and I agreed to show up and take some pictures. I posted a few of them on Facebook and hope to share more later.

Finally, I arrived back home, took a nap and watched a little H+ with Kim.

NaNoWriMo is just a few weeks away, and I've been wondering, will I have the time and energy to write? In the evenings, my mind is just too tired for such activities. Perhaps, I can build a schedule to get up early, write, and then head off to a normal day, gathering experiences for my writing.

I've been thinking more about approaching life from a participant observer stance. It seems to me, that to write well, you need to work, hard, on your craft, yet at the same time, you need to be in the world, gathering experiences to write from.

I'm especially interested in this right now, in terms of trying to get a better sense of the people around me, how to create more compelling characters in my stories, and not just flat, two dimensional caricatures.

As I look for depth and complexity in life, I'm struck by the contrast between Thoreau and Ginsburg.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. … A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

Too many people work hard all day, come home exhausted, and veg out in front of the TV; the modern day amusements of a mankind leading lives of quiet desperation.

From Thoreau, I go to Nietzsche.

I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed.

and from there I go to Ginsberg,

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

How does one surpass the men of quiet desperation without ending destroyed by madness? How does one adopt the stance of the participant observer, without ending up on the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix?

My mind drifts back to H+, transhuman. From transcendentalism to transhumanism. H+ the web series, is complex. It is the sort of entertainment that I enjoy, challenging my mind.

Yet too often, I just don't have the energy to watch a few more episodes. So, perhaps, they will wait for rare weekends, and I'll try to come up with a schedule of writing in the morning, participating and observing the lives of quiet desperation during the day, trying to consolidate thoughts and then dig into additional material, as I have time and energy in the evenings.

On Sunday morning, I slept a little later than usual. I've been thinking more about what our Facebook posts say about ourselves and if there is any relationship between Nietzsche,transcendentalism, transhumanism and what is going on in the polarization of current U.S. politics. And, with my interest in health disparities, I'm wondering how all of this relates to culturally and linguistically appropriate services and multiculturalism.

There are probably several blog posts worth exploring in this, but it is time to wrap up this post, get a little webwork done before heading off to church and a couple family events. More later...