This post brought to you by the INTERNET.

1) rut, n, 1 a: a track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage b: a groove in which something runs 2: a usual or fixed practice ; especially : a monotonous routine

2) rut, n, 1: an annually recurrent state of sexual excitement in the male deer ; broadly : sexual excitement in a mammal especially when periodic  2: the period during which rut normally occurs —often used with the

One of the joys of learning a new language is the acquired ability to rediscover your own native language.  Often this is a pleasure that I feel in passing moments that rarely account to much more than trivial knowledge in my own mind.  I am to emotionally stable and impatient to be poetic.  If there is a story inside of me to tell, I have yet to find it, and writing for the sake of writing has never been my thing.  But I can still appreciate the discover of new forces of power within old words.

I have been in a rut of one kind, but sadly not the other.  Before I looked up the word, as many people had been using it around me, I had a vague sense of what it meant.  I thought I knew the word in the idiomatic sense of “being stuck in a rut,” but I was missing a very key point.  In my mind, I had visions of the groove in the ground (even though it seemed more like a ditch than a narrow channel to me) and the sense of being stuck in it.  Well, actually, the idea of being stuck in the rut came out of the idiomatic phrase, though I always associated a rut as being something one gets stuck in.  There is an element of action within the definition of a rut that makes being in one so much more perilous.   Read the first definition again: “a track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage.”  There is a necessary action for the rut to exist.  It must be worn into existance.  How is this done?  Does one actively seek to make ruts?  No.  There is typically not a conscious effort to dig out a rut.  That would be “digging,” a different verb altogether.  “Wearing” simply occurs (here’s the kicker) “by habitual” means.  It is repetitive and takes time. 

A rut, in the figurative sense, does not occur overnight.  Waking up one morning and not feeling chipper does not mean a person is in a rut.  They are having a bad day.  These things happen.  A rut is when, drawing from the secondary definition, a “usual or fixed practice” becomes “a monotonous routine.”   This is where I am at.  My life here has become a static fixture of getting up, doing little, and going to sleep.  I am hardly active (although I can tag that one more to the fact that winter is making it more and more reasonable to stay inside and curl up in bed) and I am starting to worry that if I don’t change my habitual passage, I’m never going to get anywhere. 

My inspirational thought for the day comes from Capt. Jean-Luc Picard.  One of my other simple pleasures in life is stumbling across a Star Trek TNG re-run that was written by whoever on their staff was so engrossed with philosophical questioning.  There were two doozies on this episode.  The first was the time-traveler’s parodox, that is, if they go back in time and somehow change history, then their timeline might be altered and affect their existence.  This was brushed off by another question, that being, how do you make a decision in a dilemma, that is, a choice with two options, neither desirable.  The premise they set up made it so that with one choice, a terrible event would happen, but with the other choice, an even worse event could happen.  The decision is made in favor of the risk.

“To try or not to try. To take a risk or play it safe. Your arguments have reminded me how precious the right to choose is. And because I’ve never been one to play it safe, I choose to try.” 

Damn right, Jean-Luc. 

I need to get out of my rut.  Maybe into a rut (see definition 2).  But I need to do something.

I need to try.

Funniest thing I’ve read all week.

“Soft cheese asphyxiation” is the 2nd leading cause of death among intellectuals, after “Drinking with Christopher Hitchens.”

~ Stephen Colbert, I am America (And so Can You!)

Blog Canibalism or Blog Incest…?

This quote was written for a blog on www.huffingtonpost.com by Richard Schiff of The West Wing fame.  It is a very well put thought.

“If you are like me our most powerful epiphanies find us after their effect could have been put to good use. We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.”

I feel like that often, followed by the inevitable pain in my shins that come from kicking myself.  Just a reminder for that lofty ideal of awareness in the moment.  Never stop striving for it.