A Question...

If you've read between 1/3 and 2/3 of a book and you can't seem to get any further, should you really walk away?

I habitually start books. Or maybe I should say that I chronically begin them? I typically make it at LEAST 60 pages. And then I stop. Perhaps I'm a harsh critic? I don't usually leave the book saying I hate it, I just can't make myself finish. In fact, I tend to see it as MY problem for not being able to complete the book. I read 1/3 of "She's Come Undone" in a few days. But now it's been a couple of months and I'm still not done. At this point, I'm not sure if there's any ending that will satisfy me as a reader. It hasn't been a bad book, but at the same time it's been torture---I know that doesn't make any sense, but it did in my head.

More than a year after I started "I Am Legend" I did actually finish it. It wasn't great. I still haven't seen the movie even though I know they are very different. I'm glad I can say I finished it and tuck it away in my "finished" column, I guess.

Should I consider it a character flaw that I don't "finish what I've started"? Or am I really just saving myself time by avoiding the end of books that have already lost my interest?

Life's purpose in blogworld

All along, I have struggled with what the content of this blog should be, (which is precisely how I named it) and I'm slowly learning to not apologize for expressing my thoughts. I'm growing in the understanding that everything I say or write does not have to be perfect, nor does it have to be meaningful or completely developed. Meaning is good, but I've also found that something I find to be rather obvious is precisely what someone else would have missed had it not been spelled it out for them.

I'm learning to accept that there are going to be others who may be more eloquent than me or have large amounts of daily readers. But I also know that I am only responsible for me. I grow through writing, and at least here, I can only offer... me.

This excerpt from Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" is, in part, why I even mention any of this.

AT a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme too foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might have done. He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward his extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense, no truly central or centralizing thought in the lecture. I would have had him deal with his privatest experience, as the poet does. The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men want anything of me, it is only to know how many acres I make of their land,—since I am a surveyor,—or, at most, what trivial news I have burdened myself with. They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man once came a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery; but on conversing with him, I found that he and his clique expected seven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one-eighth mine; so I declined. I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere,—for I have had a little experience in that business,—that there is a desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country,—and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself.
(You can read the rest here.)

I'm very much aware that my life may not seem like some "great" accomplishment when I die. I may never have a full-time job and I may never publish a book. I may never touch a multitude of lives or speak to the masses. But I hope that I am remembered as a woman who grew and loved and shared; who was humble enough to admit her wrongs and strong enough to face her doubt; a woman who was in love with her God.

(And perhaps someday I'll even be able to confidently discern between the correct uses of commas, colons and semi-colons!)