Prolegomenon

Greetings, Gentle Readers.

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we'll begin.

In my last post, I told you about the decision to undergo this process. Today I will explain why it is necessary.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone who knew me that I am not a very happy person. There is a lot about myself and my life that I do not like very much. There are a lot of things that can be improved or changed. There is also stuff that is good, and I want to keep the good while pruning the bad. Cut back the weakness, reinforce what is strong. However, it is much easier to focus on the bad, so let's do that, shall we?

I am 42 years old (nothing particularly wrong with that, except inasmuch as it may make some parts of the process more difficult, but then it may well make other parts easier). I am in extremely poor physical condition, being 5'11" tall and weighing 311 lbs. I can't run 50 yards without being winded, or climb a flight of stairs without breathing heavily. I love to swim, but can't because I don't want to take my shirt off in public. Most other activities I would like to take part in, like running around outside playing with my daughter, I cannot do because my body can't hack it. In short, I be fat. Morbidly obese, I believe the term is.

I have a job I love working for a company I despise, who is the sole employer in the field. Said company is taking advantage of the current economy and cutting staff. While I am not currently affected, this scares the bejesus out of me. I currently lack the skills and education to get a job in another field that will pay me anything close to what I make now. Warning, kids - don't over-specialise.

When I look at my inventory of character traits I see much that I do not like. I've got good helpings of all the major sins, but particularly and especially envy. Other prominent traits are being quick to anger and not being nearly as sympathetic as I would like. I notice those last two traits most notably when dealing with my wife and my daughter, who are both wonderful and really do not deserve my irritability and judgementalness.
I have plenty of other character flaws but to list them all right now would swell this post to Brobdingnagian proportions. There will be plenty of time for that in future posts.

Spiritual dissatisfaction is difficult to quantify or even identify with any clarity. All I can say is that I find my life lacking somehow. It is like there is a hole in my life, but one that I cannot pinpoint and locate. How does one identify what's missing in one's soul? You can't take it out and look at it, at least not easily. Present - soul! Inspection - soul! It just doesn't work that way. This is certainly the most nebulous aspect of my personal quest, one that is going to take a considerable amount of - ahem - soul searching.

This is all starting to sound a little morbid, so let me make this clear. It is not my intention to wallow in misery and flagellate myself for the sake of exhibitionism. My intent is to take a good look at myself, with the goal of self-improvement. I don't want to whine about how much of a pathetic loser I am (although that will surely happen periodically); instead I want to find the good within me and polish it up a bit, find the bad and either work on fixing it or throw it out, rebuild myself - better, stronger, faster. That is my eventual goal.


Since all that would be profoundly boring to obsess over to exclusion of all else, this space will also be a soapbox for me to write about whatever else happens to interest me, perhaps in the hope that others may find it amusing, interesting or even useful.

And, who knows? Maybe you will find something useful in my self-indulgent quest, as well.