Inertia creeps through comfort

That phase that I referred to in my first post is one of comfort. For the past couple of years (or has it been three? Every year seems to go by faster than the last) I’ve been working primarily as an interactive media specialist (i.e. editor and project manager) for the Czech Republic’s leading telco. I also translate (mainly press releases from the telco and IT sectors, as well as a porn magazine specializing in S&M). I’m firmly entrenched in a niche that provides me with steady work. I’ve got good clients, and my working week is extremely flexible. I sometimes think that the lack of structure in my working week has dulled me to the point of stagnation, but at this point in time I can’t imagine myself keeping to a rigid nine-to-five (and beyond) schedule.

So, yes, things are comfortable, but for about the past year I’ve been grappling with the fact that I’m stuck in a state of inertia, waiting in vain for some outside force to knock me into motion spiritually, mentally, creatively, intellectually, and emotionally. The gym more than takes care of the physical aspect, so at least there’s that.

When I first moved to the Czech Republic, I was all about writing, living the cliché. I prayed at the altars of Bukowski, Miller, Welsh, and Hemingway. I managed to produce a healthy quantity of poetry, short stories, news articles, and even a novel in spite of (or aided by) an unhealthy quantity of booze and drugs. Yes, more cliché. Following an inevitable spiral in Brno, I came to Prague, detoxed, got my shit together, and met the woman who eventually became my wife. That was over a decade ago.

A decade. Damn. That’s hella long ago.

I’m falling into sentimentality now, and I’ve had enough of that. Fast forward to the present. Things are good. A bit dull, but good. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been telling myself it’s time to get back to doing what I came here to do: write. To paraphrase the mighty Wu-Tang Clan, it’s no longer enough to get by, I’ve got to get over. This inertia has gone on long enough.

First post

Another phase, another blog. I’ve done four of these things, the first was intensely personal, the second for money, and three and four were false starts. Of these, only the second and fourth are still up on the interwebs: Dog Eat Blog (the name was my idea, even though I’m more of a cat person) and my MySpace blog. I stopped working for the company that hosts Dog Eat Blog, and for some reason I didn’t really get into the whole MySpace thing. Facebook, now that’s another story, but that isn’t really blogging, unless you count the status updates, which I usually leave blank.

Anyway, I’m posting this from The Globe Café and Bookstore in downtown Prague. The WiFi ain’t free, but the atmosphere’s always good, whether it’s busy or not (today it’s not), and the coffee’s decent. I’ll probably bang off a slew of posts on various topics today, buzzing on filtered coffee refills, hopefully giving this thing some kind of structure.

I don’t usually read extensive posts, but in my past blogs I had a tendency to write way too much, straying from non-existent points, going off on unrelated tangents, and generally being self-indulgent, like most personal blogs. While self-indulgent blogging is not necessarily a bad thing, it usually makes pretty dull reading. So I’ll try to keep things short, but old habits die really hard.

So, what can a reader expect here at Driftword? Obviously entries on stuff that interests me, entries that will provide at most some useful information, at least a welcome diversion during the workday or aimless surfing. Topics include fitness (mainly weightlifting) and nutrition, writing and literature, the internet, computer gaming, Prague and the Czech Republic, and whatever happens to be on my mind when I sit down to write. The next few posts serve as introductions to these topics.