Last week, while praying an “Our Father,” I got to the “...and lead us not into temptation...” part, it occurred to me that the biggest temptation I yield to is engulfing myself in a sense of hopelessness. So this year, for Lent, I’m giving up the sense of hopelessness that’s been dogging me for years. It’s really been doing me no good, and it’s about time I shrugged it off, no?
Errata: I’ve been writing what I hope will become a series of essays about my earlier indulgent attitudes towards fine cooking and how these attitudes have changed since having children and becoming under-employed. Just yesterday, Entropy published the second essay in the series—“Escarole.” The first—“Chicken in a Pot”--appeared (also in Entropy) a few weeks earlier.
As some readers of this blog know, many years ago, before my wife Alison and I had children, we had, materially-speaking, a pretty good life. We both earned good salaries. We spent freely on ourselves, took nice vacations, and ate really, really well.
Today, we have three children and downsized incomes. It’s really hard sometimes for me to fathom the lifestyle we once enjoyed, how immodestly we spent on things that, to my present self, seem like frivolous luxuries. The disparity between my past and present lifestyles is just so vast.
I’ve been working more on the novel I spoke about in my previous blog entry, but I’ve also been playing with the next essay in this series. As long as I don’t allow myself to succumb again to that evil sense of hopelessness, hopefully both will be completed in the coming weeks.
Errata: I’ve been writing what I hope will become a series of essays about my earlier indulgent attitudes towards fine cooking and how these attitudes have changed since having children and becoming under-employed. Just yesterday, Entropy published the second essay in the series—“Escarole.” The first—“Chicken in a Pot”--appeared (also in Entropy) a few weeks earlier.
As some readers of this blog know, many years ago, before my wife Alison and I had children, we had, materially-speaking, a pretty good life. We both earned good salaries. We spent freely on ourselves, took nice vacations, and ate really, really well.
Today, we have three children and downsized incomes. It’s really hard sometimes for me to fathom the lifestyle we once enjoyed, how immodestly we spent on things that, to my present self, seem like frivolous luxuries. The disparity between my past and present lifestyles is just so vast.
I’ve been working more on the novel I spoke about in my previous blog entry, but I’ve also been playing with the next essay in this series. As long as I don’t allow myself to succumb again to that evil sense of hopelessness, hopefully both will be completed in the coming weeks.
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