"Omnipotence is most omnipotent when one does nothing!"There are several things I have in mind for this morning, several options to spend my time in ways that are fun and/or productive. Each of them has a claim on me as the "best" way to spend the morning. I could finish the reading for class next week; I could finish researching and revising the paper I'll present at Mythcon in August; I could do the dishes, put away my clothes, do a spot of vacuuming; I could go rollerblading; I could shave my legs; I could drop off my suit for dry cleaning; I could write a thank-you note; I could go to the gym. Many of these I could do outside. And then in the background, there are other things, bigger things, related to making decisions about whether to rent, and where; whether to sell, and when; and how to make something of my life.
--Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad
As always, making any one choice of what to do, no matter how trivial, forecloses other choices for how to spend that time. And yet the hourglass runs even when I don't make any particular choice.
So I've spent the last 3.5 hours in a desultory fashion, having some breakfast (oatmeal, fresh strawberries and blueberries, a coffee smoothie), reading a bit of The History of the Kings of Britain and the (ugh) graphic novel version of The Last Unicorn (iTunes, you betrayed me!).
To remove paralysis, probably better not to ask "What is the best way to spend the day to take full advantage of my free time and the glorious weather?" but instead "What do I want to accomplish today?" Ick, that sounds so modern and self-helpy.
"... thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
-- Billy the Bard, Omlette (or something like that - one of his more popular works anyway)
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