““The impetuous wind can ignite the fire or put it out.”
― Regina O’Melveny, The Book of Madness and Cures

I was thinking about moments, which led me to momentum, which brought me to P (p = m v) which brought me to impetus (which is where the P is derived from in the equation). Impetus in turn brought me to Regina O’Melveny, which brought us here. That’s the truth of the matter. And this is how the mind of a writer works when we begin with a blank slate.

Honestly, I’m too busy with work to bother writing at all. And yet there’s nothing more important for me than to sit down with myself and sort through things, catch a few (but seemingly never all) typos and release this to the world. Some days I exceed my average reader count, some days it lands with a thud, but either way I’m on to the next blank slate. And this is how we move through life.

When we know just how fast the time is going (tempus fugit), and how we are only granted just so many days to do with what we will, we must then seize these moments as our own and make the most of them. That’s what living is to me. We are either stoking our fires or watching them peter out from inattention. The days fly by either way.

An editor is silently screaming as they read this blog post, and I offer them my sincere apologies. Too many parentheses, too many commas, and the post is all over the place. This is what writing unfiltered brings to the table, and it’s beautifully effective in drawing out thoughts and ideas that would otherwise lie dormant. But as a finished blog post? Goodness. I ought to cut the entire mess down to the O’Melveny quote and leave well enough alone. After all, what is the impetus of this post anyway?

Remember that formula; p=mv? It means momentum (p) is equal to mass (m) times velocity (v). We are what we choose to focus on and repeatedly do. The impetuous wind can ignite the fire within us or put it out. But we have agency. We must keep stoking the fires that mean everything and let the winds of time and persistence fuel a life of purpose and fulfillment. There will never be a better time to attack our why than now. After all, we are the sum of our days.