Interesting Decisions
May 22, 2001
7:27 a.m.
I've been traveling way too much recently and it appears it's going to get worse. Now this is a place where I could spin out pretty quickly. I could easily find myself complaining about lots of things--most specifically (in regard to the purpose of this journal) the fact that I've lost the rhythm that I had developed on this novel ... which is true. I hate that. I'm still working on it. Don't get that wrong. I've been reading, and I've been jotting issues and notes, and I've sketched out a few lines here and there that I intend to use in strategic places. So the truth of the matter is that I am making progress. But an equal truth is that this progress has been in tiny spurts and has been paid for through a lot more effort that it should have to have been. What a sentence, eh? That last sentence is one that I would go back and change immediately if I were trying to create publishable prose here, by the way. I assume that regular readers know that everything you read here is first draft, and that I don't really spend much time prettying this up. As I've said before, this is a journal, not literary journalism. If you wonder how "good" or "bad' my first drafts are, reading my journal for a week or three ought to give you a pretty good idea. Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. I was saying that I'm really struggling to stay in the rhythm of this book, and it's hard to so with this business of travel that's suddenly pervading my life. These types of issues are not fun to deal with. In some ways it strikes me in a way that the whole Vince Carter thing does. Not completely, but there's a similar flavor of work ethic, or something like it there. For those who weren't paying attention, Vince Carter is a basketball player for the Toronto Raptors NBA team who left college early. He finished after three years away, and went to his graduation ceremony this weekend--coincidentally, as it turns out--on the same day that his NBA team (of which he is the star player) played the seventh game of a playoff series. Carter chose to hop in the team owner's jet, and take a stroll down the runway in the morning, then jet into Philadelphia for the afternoon game. Now, a lot of people are going to praise him for going to the graduation, and I certainly see that as a laudable activity in itself. I see a certain determinism in Vince Carter that is noble and admirable. But ... In the end his team lost. His last second shot was long, and the team fell a point short. And so in the end, there's this question that will linger in the minds of his city, his teammates, and his coaches. The question is: Did you (Vince Carter) truly dedicate yourself to our cause? The question is there because Carter chose to miss the morning shoot around. He chose to leave his teammates wondering and fidgeting about whether he would make it back in time. He chose to leave the rest of the team wondering if they themselves would have been given the keys to the company jet if it were them rather than the star (and soon-to-be free agent) Toronto Raptor. All of these are divisive to a team, and they dilute the capability they have to play. So, to truly judge the effect Carter's jaunt to North Carolina had you have to take into account its affect on the whole team. Don't get me wrong here. Vince Carter seems like a really fine person. I'm not on a Carter hunt here--just acknowledging the fact that the question now exists because of the choices he made, and when he made them. If this had been in December before a game with Cleveland, no one would question him. But this was the morning before the most important game in Toronto basketball history. Not only that, but Carter had his degree whether he walked down the aisle, or not. My point here is that sometimes we have to make a decision to honor the commitment we have to the people who pay the bills. Yes, in this day and age, perhaps this expectation is a little looser than it was in the Golden Years. But it's still there. It affects me at times like this, and it's hard to deal with. I don't like the idea of having to do my personal work in little patches of time--just like, I'm sure, Vince Carter didn't like the idea of missing his graduation stroll. I will not and do not mean to judge Vince Carter as inherently reckless or selfish because of this one choice. I applaud his work ethic of getting his degree, and don't think it would be fair to skew things so totally and then assign a tag to someone for this one decision. I believe in balance, and I believe there are times you make decisions in different ways. I believe that sometimes you sacrifice your personal short-term desires because it is the right thing to do. So I'm traveling, and I'm trying to build my momentum for the second draft of this novel into what nooks and crannies of time I have left. This is my decision for now. And it's one that I can live with. ...at least in the short term. [grin]  Our hearts STILL bleed for you, Ron Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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