No, I don’t need no help // I can sabotage me by myself // I don’t need no one else // I can sabotage me by myself.
– Paramore, Caught in the Middle
Pictured above: Me.
Ohai there, everybody. Turns out yes, I’m still alive. No, I haven’t succumbed to whatever flavor-of-the-month terrible thing is going on. So, apologies to you, my occasional reader, but mostly to myself for letting yet another slew of absurdity keep me from maintaining my working quota. It’s a bad look.
And in the spirit of full disclosure, it’s not just here that I’ve dropped the ball. Work is running out of hand, I’ve failed to meet writing deadlines both personally and professionally, and most everything around me is in shambles. I hit that point where there’s so much going wrong that I find myself running in circles trying to pick a place to start and coming up short. It’s a frazzled knot with no entry point in sight. As I so often tend to do, this led me to just pushing it all away in frustration and compounding the stress of it all again and again, bringing me here.
Of course, there are really only two paths from this point. Give up or fix my shit. If you’ve been keeping up with anything I do here, I think the choice is pretty obvious. That said, I can’t just flip a switch and get back to working order. There are some fundamental issues that need to be addressed, and I’ve been trying to get a catalog of all these going, and in doing so that gave me something of an idea.
I’d sort of run out of things to cover here. I don’t like the idea of rehashing, I don’t want this to become a rant on current events, and my mind was running all over the place with other issues that I couldn’t give this the time it needed to bloom. But the thought of dealing with my own crap in a base level seemed to connect. Being as Catholic as I am, what’s more introspective than exposing my life to an analysis of the seven deadly sins?
So, that’s what I’ll be doing. My next seven articles will cover the sins, their analogues in today’s society, their reflections in myself, and how I can utilize the corresponding virtues to keep aiming myself toward what is beautiful and just. You’ll afford me a bit of navel-gazing, yes? There’s been enough of it already, I suppose you’re used to it by now. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be as helpful to you as I hope it will be for myself.
In the meantime, pray for me and those around me. I’ll do the same for you, and perhaps we can help each other along the path toward achieving what is desired of us.
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