The Pillow Book of Prudence . . . Part Eight

What motivates one: Realising that one is getting older and that time is getting less.  Opening the curtains on a day when the sky stretches limitless and blue, unmarked by cloud.  Being envious: envying people of great accomplishment can urge one to attempts of accomplishment oneself. Challenges: the best motivator of all.  Good reviews.  Having a good night’s sleep.

Having a good night's sleep . . .

What doesn’t motivate one: Fear:  it blinkers one, blocking achievement.  Windy days: how can one garden when one’s ears are blown off?  Frustration: I’m female, enough said.  Waiting for an assessment of one’s work.  Cooking for one.  Having a bad night’s sleep.

In this middle period of the seventh month, the government is about to call a national election.  Once more, after a provincial election not long since, we must face dreary portrait posters on trees, egomaniacal promises that will be broken, our favourite viewing interrupted by advertisements that are all the same, from parties that one couldn’t slip a piece of paper between.  One can be forgiven for being jaded.  Xenophobia shall raise its head from an argument that we all thought died in the age of enlightenment (the 70’s). I walked today with my dogs and watched other people walking and noticed their predilection for black clothes (again, sigh) and I have decided that perhaps they feel the weight of right-wing idiocy as much as I do.  But ever hopeful, I wear a bright blue anorak because it pays to believe in common sense and brighter things.