It is necessary that I must distract my mind if I can begin. Maybe I'll find something to watch on the computer, something to do with my background interests. Guitars and music, a broad category to chose from, the technical equipment, lessons of how to play a Beatles song, a video of an old band, or maybe a poet, Larkin reading, or some sort of travelog, an Irish monk's place. The life of a musician. The Civil War era people. The history of wine. Mountain climbing, the Eiger, Everest, K2. The tiger. Kerouac's rise and decline. Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, travels of the Buddha. I confess to being stuck sometimes, the same things. Sometimes I sit through things of questionable factual background. JFK. Giotto.
Jesus had a pre-existing condition.
Cooking helps sometimes. The building of a stew. Sear the meat. Enter the onion, the vegetables to follow, then the wine to deglaze, and then the adding of the stock.
The more I get distracted, the better. This lets the inner wheels turn.
The awful rule a writer must live be, courting things different from the facts of reality. A lotus eater, tranquil, forgetful, distracted from real life. The writer needs it.
As the distractions go, so goes life. More and more, something like Thomas Merton, a Desert Father for advice, in this land where I am stuck, no answer to anything, everything leaving one caught in a trap.
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