My current level of fatigue is the deciding factor in what I do in a given moment, on a given day. This is not something I'd even considered as a possible framework when I was younger: I had all the energy in the world, and a variety of factors, parents and such, propping me up and keeping me from harm. How the years have gone by. I've fallen in with many people and gotten by in all sorts of ways, but the amount of energy I have left to start things is now, on average, drastically smaller than the number of things I wished I'd done. Look at me talking like I'm old. This is only the start, I imagine. I'm only 31 now.
I've just finished my first readthrough of The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts (and Al Chung-Hang Huang) and have enjoyed it enough to add to my lists to read again sometime. I feel like I'm holding only half a book with it, partly because I know that Watts died before he finished it. I do not think the book offers any easy answers: though it does steer decidedly toward Contemplative Taoism and away from the more mystic/psychic power/immortality focused Taoism. (Hisen Taoism, apparently). I think there's quite a bit to be teased out of the book, and Watts makes so many references to other writings that it's quite the tangled web to explore.
I don't think I'll discuss what I've started reading next, just in case I shoot myself in the foot by abandoning it later. I'll just write reviews as I finish things. But don't be fooled: I don't always finish a book. Even Watercourse Way... I started it in March, got through the first few chapters, then put it down until a few days ago. Then slammed through the latter half of it today. :P
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