Obdurate

Obdurate [adj] (ahb duhr uht)

1. Hardened in feeling
2. Resistant to persuasion

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I'm completely obdurate on the issue and you cannot convince me otherwise:

Traveling is enjoyable. Sorting through travel photos is not.


I took over 600 photos on my trip to Ireland.  While that means I have over 600 memories captured in film, er -- zeros and ones (?),  it also means that I have over 600 memories to sort, label, compile, edit, delete, regret deleting, and share.  This kind of activity requires a fair amount of momentum, typically granted by the glow of the trip upon one's return.  I rode that wave - showed my family all 600, unedited images, posted two days worth of photo albums online with captions, set my desktop background as a vista from the Cliffs of Mohr.

And then Wednesday came around.

Wednesday was the day I went back to work.  Wednesday was the day I attacked 700 unanswered e-mails.  Wednesday was the day reality trumped memories.

To say the least, my wave of momentum evaporated.

Nonetheless, a loss of momentum isn't completely to blame.  There's also cognitive dissonance.  I look at a photo of our trip to the Joyce County Sheepdog demonstration - look at Sweep fly around, herding those sheep (or more likely, staring them down)!  I captured that moment, but know, from memory, that the better shot would have been of someone in our group petting Roy, another sheepdog.  The reality of what I have captured is countered by what I know I could have captured, if I'd only known.  Opportunity cost meets cognitive dissonance.

The trip itself was lovely: green, hot, sunny, energetic, filling.  I wouldn't trade the experience.  The need to sort through my photos?  Now that experience I'd trade.  Thank goodness for travel-mates that love to point, shoot, edit, and share.

Assuage

Assuage [verb] (uh sway)

1. To make something unpleasant less severe

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I've found that the only thing that can assuage the fear of penning a long, boring, obnoxious blog entry is to set out with the objective to do just that.  To write a long, boring, obnoxious blog entry, that is.  Prepare yourselves, dear friends.  This is going to be a dozy.

I (and a couple thousand others on this planet, thank goodness) have a tendency to avoid that which has the potential to be unpleasant.  Take, for example, physicals.  Or cocktail socials.  Or poorly constructed, asinine, yuppie accounts about my trip to the Emerald Isle.

... not that the last example has anything to do with the fact that I have not posted for months. No, not at all.   *CoughCough*

On the one hand, it's comforting to know that shying away from such galling occurrences is more natural than not.  "Walk into that lion's den?  No, thanks," screams the human psyche.  "I'd much rather walk around.  Or starve.  Or go play this great game of cornhole I just found!" 

On the other hand (because there is always another hand), it's just as disconcerting that we lean toward cowardice when given the option.  I decided to avoid my own blog for months in order to maintain a false sense of literary bravery and accomplishment around in my proverbial handbag.  "Lion's den?  What lion's den? Let's get back to that game of cornhole," my mind rifts.  While I may now be an expert cornhole player, what have I really gained?

If you said, "Nothing," you're far too pessimistic.  If you said, "A growing sense of impending doom," gold star for you!

Today, I set out to leave cowardice at the door.  While it hasn't reached the entryway just yet (it's peering around my couch, right now), I know that only way to push it out will be to try.  This attempt may not be noble or iconic or bold or, heck, even good, but it's something.  And something is a lot better than the nothing I've been putting out.

Here's to second, third, and fourth tries.