A continual trial these days is balancing confection and reflection, action and reaction.

During my career years, this wasn’t a problem. On a treadmill, you keep running or fall off. Duty dictates. These days I wake with little I must do and a plethora I’m eager to. Delectable options paralyze me like the proverbial fat boy in the candy store. I want to read, write, take a walk, e-chat, condole a pal, tousle Henry – if I’m really feeling decadent watch a movie during daylight. I’ve forsworn the news these unbearable days, but Substack, where you find me, coaxes with countless voices. Then I want to goof off, wasting consciousness on… let’s skip that. Then there are the museums in Manhattan – and music – and plays – and get-togethers – not to mention envisioning adventures to earth’s far corners.

Nice problem to have, you nod. So it is, but a problem is still a problem, the solution to which may confound. Optionality may preclude the obvious. Fierce ambition or devotion leave us no choice: the hard-charging executive or nursing mom or aspiring dancer have to do what they have to and that’s that, get out of their way. But what if what we “have to” do is an adjective not a verb? What if our goal is to be good, kind, productive, loving, effective in our span, to artifice the memorable and attaint your heart? Show me the sure way there!

Our choices define us. This compounds the complexity of deciding. We pause at the crossroads debating between, in Robert Frost’s quintessential metaphor, the trodden path or “the road not taken.” And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Our choice may make “all the difference.” (That final “all” tolls like an awful bell.)

Lighten up, a friend jollies. It’s only how to spend a few hours. Tomorrow you can do something else.

“Only a few hours!” I refrain from erupting. What more precious do we possess than time! A dollar may be restored to our account but not a day. And have you checked the calendar? How many days remain until the frost!

Some retirees load up their schedules to elude such uncertainty. Pausing perplexed at a crossroads isn’t pleasant. Doubts assail. Who are you anyway? Have you spent your span well? Were your previous choices laudable? “To be or not to be,” etc. We may announce “I have so much to do!” in the doleful certainty that nothing we do matters much.

These missives forfend my futility. I must ready myself for our daily constitutional, find something engaging to discuss, brush and dress so my appearance reassures. It’s like giving a dinner party. I must prepare everything just so, so you’ll be pleased. Will my words matter beyond this moment? (“Matter” is among the squirreliest of verbs!) That will be as it may – they matter now. I commence with my clunky opening sentence (which is intended to slow you down). One thought suggests its successor. New words must fit with preexisting. I’m busy, happy, doing, not pondering what to do.

Just now my larder is crammed with baked muffins (I mean, missives) I’ve “written ahead.” To add more would risk previous morsels going stale. I could work on my Big Book, but that spooks me – what if (as I suspect) it’s stillborn? I could read. Henry is always up for a romp. (He finds writing ridiculous though he sometimes participates because I ask.) I sigh for conclusive necessity, knowing it’s a chimera.

Finally I throw in the towel. (A metaphor from boxing, as you no doubt know.) One more missive, why not?