A little while ago (roughly 40 or 50 years by the feel of it, but under a month in clock time) I decided to post here once a day for as long as quarantine/lockdown/shelter-in-place/stay-at-home/whatever lasts. This has been fun for me, and good practice, but also a little frantic. Sometimes I wake up with ideas, and many days I don’t. I’m keeping a head start with a decent backlog of little stubs I can expand into posts.

Well, I have that backlog for now. My brain (ever the asshole) keeps piping up to ask: “What if you suddenly run out? What if you find yourself one day with nothing to say?”

(Note that my brain is less concerned with me having nothing interesting to say, because that particular fear ship has sailed).

This feels like a pretty mundane version of the plight of Scheherazade, who forestalled her execution by prolonging her storytelling. Did she also wake up every morning seeing “add to the story and don’t get executed” on her to-do list, and break into a cold sweat? Did she ever know that she had, say, 235 more nights of material ready to go, but wonder what would happen on night 236? 

The differences, of course, between me and Scheherazade are that I’m the one who required my daily post, rather than a murderous king. Also, unlike the execution hanging over her head, there are absolutely no negative repercussions if I skip a day. But apart from that, the comparison is ironclad.

All that’s happening here is that my old friend, the scarcity voice, has pulled up a chair. Yes, we have enough for now, but what about when we don’t?

To which the only response is a hair flip and a glib “what about it?” and then one must lace up one’s tennis shoes and go for a walk.