The Joy of Being In Medias Res

Each night, my sons and my wife and I all say, before bedtime, what we are thankful for. To Karen and me, this is important for reasons that include more than just the theological angle; it's important in fostering an understanding, in our boys, of the things that are going right in their lives. I know, for one, there are times in my life when I take stock and realize how absurdly grateful I should be for the way things have gone thus far, even in the face of trials and the occasional sufferings... (We all have them.)

I don't ever want to be all slap-happy and google-eyed about it, though. And I admit it grinds my gears a little when I hear people say they are "blessed" -- sounds like they got a free gift that I didn't. (Admittedly, this is a flaw in personal perspective...)

While we are on the subject, though...

Wait... "We"? Sort of lame to start a subject and then use that phrase: "While we are on the subject..." I mean, I put us there. It's not like I just got lucky and something came up, at a party, that I was happy to talk about...

(Hold on -- this is going to be a rough ride, this blog post...)

In Medias Canoe.

Be that as it may, while I am dominating, dictating and wallowing in my self-abosrbed subject, it occurs to me how good it is to be in medias res. (Oh, give me a break -- it is one of the only Latin phrases I know. I even linked to its definition so I could look like a scholar. Granted, I used it literally and not in the literary sense...but that's not important right now...)


Anyhoo, as I said, it is good to be "in the middle of things." What an essential component that is to my personal happiness. For me, of course, it comes down to music or writing, but, lately mostly music. This morning, I walked past my studio on the way out to work and breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction: skeleton track done (of a new project with my good friend and favorite -- if slightly mad -- collaborater, Mark) and loads to do, still: drum track, guitar tracks, "sweetening" of tracks, vocals, mixing, mastering... Aaaahhh. It's like sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. A feast to come.

Why share this? I guess we are all looking for those things that make us happy. It's always good to see what makes others happy in order to run those things through the old analytical banks to see if it works out to happiness for us, personally.

For me, being in medias res is essential. For me, it is moving toward the end of an artistic project. But it doesn't have to be artistic to those who are not artists. It can be anything one wants to do...anything with monitorable progress: weight loss; making a table; collecting baseball cards; becoming able to touch one's toes (or other people's toes, for that matter).

Something to think about, I guess. Anyway, e pluribus unum. (That's the other one that I know.)