Day 10: Why Not Fail in Silence?

January 19, 2020
Sunday

Six am. Decision time. What to do. Swimming? Working on my diary here? I haven't read a book for three days!

The pain in my lung is back. No swimming.

Yes swimming.

I just went to swim. Not sure what the doctors who treated me at the hospital would say, if I told them that I pulled an Erno Nemecsek this morning… (I'd need to explain to them that Erno Nemecsek is the Hungarian Huckleberry Finn. Even though these two boys are different, they are both the apple of young readers eye: The Boys of Paul Street, 1906 is Ferenc Molnar's masterpiece, one of the most heartbreaking and inspiring stories in Hungarian young adult fiction.

The book is translated into English, and I highly recommend you read it, if you ever feel like reading something great from a Hungarian writer. I'm as amazed by which Hungarian writer makes it internationally as The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik is amazed by which writer gets the Nobel Prize.

Pneumonia is the greatest evil that I have ever had to fight physically. I refuse to write more about it, words would give it more powers. I just wish it would be gone.

I swam 20 minutes.

My pyramid of creative challenges from most difficult to easiest:

Clearly, "writing a novel" is the most challenging challenge of all. Therefore I tend to do all the lighter challenges first, ending up not doing any writing at all. Since "reading a novel" is the easiest challenge, I tend to start with all the other challenges first in my effort to actually GET something difficult DONE. I can see my next two years doing a hell lot of swimming and blogging while failing on my actual challenges. This below plan is the one I'd need to follow. It shows what I want to spend my time on MOST to LEAST:

Bottomline: I spent the whole weekend working YET haven't made any progress with my challenges. I MUST find a way to spend as little time on this diary as possible.

Why do I still do it, I wonder. Why do I want to be out there? Why not fail in silence?