Jack Heald

I used to tell my children as they practiced their daily jam writing – I insisted that they practice writing in spite of their resistance – that you often do not know what you are thinking until you start writing.

 Around the time of my divorce, I stopped keeping a journal and I guess I quit being aware of what I am thinking. Do you ever experience that? Do you ever start to say something – either verbally or in written form – and then begin to open your heart and mind and be surprised by what is coming out of you? That’s the reason to journal, to jam write, to just write – to know yourself.

I think one of the most challenging things about keeping a journal is the pain of finding out what you really think – and perhaps the dissatisfaction with the person you find staring back at you from the pages of your diary. Sometimes it is too disappointing, too painful, to face that person – and perhaps that is another reason not to journal.

But really, that is likely the best reason to journal.

Here I am, 51 years old, shocked that I have reached that age. It honestly feels like I was 35 just a few months ago, but it was actually more like – uhmmm – (quick calculation in the head) – about 200 months ago. That’s a lot of moon cycles. When I think about the reality that I have less time in front of me than I had behind me, it makes me more serious about making the time count. I used to think “making the time count” was all about doing good and honoring God and all that blah-blah but I realize now that the only thing that will really count – to me at least – is to look back on the life I was given and be satisfied with what I did with that gift. Frankly, it really won’t matter what anyone thinks of me if I am disappointed myself.

I think that is one of the blessings of getting older – I care less about what anyone thinks of me than I used to. I’ve lost friends and had relationships fracture – sometimes because I’ve been insensitive or a jerk, but just as often because I refused to be anyone other than who I am. I hope that going forward, people reject me because I am me, rather than because I jerky. Although I suppose one may argue that if the person I am is fundamentally “a jerk”, then they are rejecting me both for who I am and for being a jerk. Meh.

Sometime soon I am going to write about the story in Science that compared intuitive versus analytical minds and their respective inclinations – or lack thereof – towards faith. Stay tuned.

It’s the first day of finals here at Arizona State, and looking out my window it is clear that the students are cutting loose. (Unlike me, who is up to his eyeballs in alligators trying to get a Uniflow installation completed and configured.)

Sorry, I don’t have photos, but I did see – so far – today:

I saw a guy with a long gray pony-tail riding a unicyle and holding a leach that was connected to a miniature dachshund.

That was the weirdest thing I had seen all day until I saw:

A girl in a little black dress

wearing lace stockings

riding a neon-green skateboard

smoking a pipe.

No lie.