I was lousy at analytic geometry at school. I could never figure out where the line was, or what its shape told me. But I do like to use the Cartesian grid to explain things.
For me, two cardinal human drivers are laziness and busyness. We want as much agency as we can, and we don’t want to work too hard. You can express this graphically with CONTROL and INERTIA as the x and y axes. No one exists right on either axis, with a zero co-ordinate. Life would be impossible if we had to control everything, or couldn’t be bothered to do anything. We all possess both drives, so we live somewhere in the quadrant.
I think of myself as low control and high inertia. I try to pay attention to what is going on, but I don’t take much action. I am comfortable in the zen of ‘don’t know mind’ which is defined as, ahem, 'an enlightened state before opinions and ideas arise to create suffering.'
All this is by way of explaining why I have not posted in a while. I have been exploring my Inertia co-ordinate, drifting, letting life carry me downstream. I have not forgotten about the book I'm co-writing, but I moved it from the front of my mind for a few days, letting that field go fallow for a season. (Gee, how many metaphors can I work in here? Is Cartesian riverine crop-rotation a thing?)
Anyway, I’m back. I put in a couple of useful days. My boy Cody has discovered a new interest, and is puzzled by the identity of Autumn’s boyfriend. The last scene of Chapter 11 has Cody peering in through a window at an art class. My last line: The hand on his shoulder catches him by surprise.
Over to you, Melanie.
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