pursuing

Hello readers! I wanted to get off of social media, and genuinely connect with the world around me though the internet, and also just have somewhere to post some thoughts that are not my private journal, so thanks for joining.

Around 4 pm, I was in the car today driving down to my buddy Chris’s new studio apartment in Atlanta, and found myself in the familiar fantasy of: “This week will be different. This week I’m really going to get my life together. I’m finally going to figure it out.” Kinda like that meme from The Emperor’s New Groove, where Kronk (voiced by the same actor as Putty from Seinfeld) says “Oh yeah, it’s all coming together” except, with me, there’s a little more existential dread and regret for the way I’ve been living this past week.

See, I have this relationship with Chris where we talk, and he gently offers a sounding board for me, and helps me get some perspective on things I am working on. It’s a great relationship. It’s one of the first mentor/mentee relationships where I genuinely feel like we have always had this trust and friendship, and there is no weird power dynamic. It’s really pretty great.

Chris and I meet every Sunday, and I typically have a very similar thought pattern before going to see him, and when I leave and head home, my thoughts are usually something like this: “Boy, I feel great, I just talked to Chris, and he really made me feel like my problems aren’t all that bad, and that life is really ready for me and out there for the taking. You know, I feel so good, that, maybe I don’t need to do all that stuff I said I was going to do this week. I don’t need to wake up early and pray and meditate, I don’t need to practice spiritual principles, why would I do that when I already feel this good?” And so reader, for the last 6 months or so, I usually don’t, I usually grab some fast food or some chips from the gas station on the way home, and think to myself: “There’s no need for all that ‘I’ll finally figure it out this week’ stuff, I was just overreacting and being too hard on myself.”

So today, I caught myself. And I don’t know if I would have caught myself if I hadn’t decided to do this blog. Around 8 pm, when I was leaving Chris’s apartment, I suddenly had the craving for McDonald’s. Yes, readers, even in the age of microplastics and cardiac problems that this restaurant is known to proliferate, the Golden Arches still beckon to this simple American man.

It caught me, that right after I had decided with Chris, that I was going to put extra effort into re-establishing my routine of self-care, that I had this sudden craving for ultra-processed beef (sic) and potatoes.

Food is a necessary ingredient for life, but I had already had a large meal at LongHorn Steakhouse with my old man for Father’s Day, and Sunday night McDonald’s would not have given me sustenance that my body needed to complete the day’s errands, it would only have served as a pleasure-centered meal of short-sighted intentions and long-term negative effects. I’m reminded of Edmund desiring the Turkish Delights from the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia classic, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

I had an apple with peanut butter, and a peanut butter Clif Bar for dinner tonight instead.

Maybe I have an eating disorder, maybe I’m depressed, maybe I’m normally weak-willed, and today I was given some grace. I think I’m probably just human, which is both disappointing, and deeply relieving.

Thanks for joining me for my first foray into an algorithm-less internet social experience.

Penn Carson