I feel summer laziness setting in. This particular form of sloth does not involve actually sitting around doing nothing, which is how most people would define laziness. It means that, rather, I ignore all my sharply-defined goals and set new ones specifically summer-related, telling myself I'll do the other things "later." Such as:
(1) Enter and win the Ayn Rand essay contest, meaning that first I must read Atlas Shrugged.
(2) Program an elegant and detailed website for my Civil Air Patrol squadron.

I think the problem is that I give myself too much to do. If only I kept it reasonable, there would be no stress. For example, I took out eight books on Atlantis from the library for research for Erthe. Two or three would have done, no doubt. Why did I need eight? So I would never finish them all, and so that I would feel like a failure no matter what!
"But if you don't read them, you won't know everything about it. You won't be an expert," whines one part of my brain.
Oh, put a sock in it! Nobody will know the difference!
"But what if someone asks you a question about Atlantis sometime when you are rich and famous and talking about your book, and you don't know?"
They can look it up themselves. It's probably all fiction anyway.
"But what if it's not? What if Atlantis really did exist, and it is integral to your understanding of how people spread after the Tower of Babel?"
Even if it did, it probably isn't. It's a cool factoid, but I should probably learn what did happen before I worry about what might have.

You see what I put myself through? I feel much better now, however. Perhaps I should buy myself a nice couch and psychoanalyze regularly.  ¶ 1:18 PM