This weekend, I read articles about the Wright Brothers, an artist who makes photo-realistic art out of fabric, Degas’ ballet paintings, and an interview with Maya Angelou. Along with yesterday’s freak snow storm, and church, the stories help slide me into a deep funk. There’s all kinds of stuff rolling around in my head, and none of it is making me very cheerful.
Let’s start with the Wright Brothers. These guys competed against several world governments and top scientists of the day to become the first men to launch an honest-to-goodness powered airplane. They did it through sheer determination and a talent for breaking large problems into component pieces. They solved those smaller component problems on the way to a solution to the big problem. The article contained excerpts from several letters sent by the brothers to relatives and friends, and a couple news stories about them. The writing in the letters and articles was so beautiful in both form and vocabulary that it made me ashamed of all this tripe on my site. I want to be a good writer, and this site has turned into a journal, only a couple one step removed from the form of my instant messages and e-mails.
Second, Maya Angelou. She’s seventy-five and is never bored. I’m bored all the time. I’ve lost some piece of the fire I used to have. I’m too complacent and willing to sit and let things wash over me instead of standing up and taking the wave head on. I’m tired and unwilling to fight a lot of the time. Ms. Angelou has lived an amazing life, written books, poems for Presidents, sung for albums and still finds time to learn languages and teach. I can barely find the energy to cook when I get home from work, much less do anything else productive.
Third, let’s talk about church. Or, let’s not. I can’t decide what I should say here. My family reads this crap, and so do several people from church. Let’s just say, I’m having a hard time getting up and going every Sunday. I’m having a hard time biting my tongue. There was a whole paragraph here about the other things I hate about church, but I just deleted it. I get why people leave the church now… it’s hard being Mormon when you don’t fit into the “mainstream” of Mormon culture.