2021 in Bob’s computer: Buddhist philosophy for Rhobin

Rhobin Courtright wants to know: What is on your writing to-do list for this year? Do you have any long-range goals or just wrap-ups?

Look at a river. Flick your eyes away, and back again. It seems identical, but the water has moved on.

When I can place myself into this mindspace, I am at peace nothing can disturb… except by hauling me out of the forever-now into the illusion of planning and hoping, and attachment to outcome.

This is not to say we should lie down on our backs, four paws up in the air. It is good to strive. Passionate involvement in a project can make that NOW into a galaxy of diamonds, only, beware of hoping for outcome. That’s something I slip into much of the time, even though I know the consequences: all suffering is from attachment.

I used to enjoy making jigsaw puzzles. (English is a strange language! Someone else made the puzzle. I assembled it.) There is a great deal of inherent satisfaction in the activity, but once the picture is completed, it’s taken apart, and put back into the box.

Seeing all of life like a jigsaw puzzle would be permanent armour against anything. Do our best, but who cares about outcome?

All right, with this long prologue, I can now give a short answer. Here are my current projects:

1. Michael Amos of Sleepy Lion Publishing has spent an impressive amount of time and effort in working with me to revise Guardian Angel. We have significant improvements in the story, there is a new cover coming, and the title will be Maraglindi — soon.

2. Victor Volkman of Loving Healing Press is a long term friend and comrade in working for a better world. He has a full time job in IT, so he runs his publishing company pro bono.

About August 2020, I asked if he was open to marketing Sleeper, Awake, in the way he is doing for others of my books, for example Aniko. Instead, he has accepted it for his own list, so it is also being reissued, with a new cover, but the same title.

3. My From Depression to Contentment has done so well that I am writing a companion volume, Lifting the Gloom: An antidepressant primer of writings. The two books go together like main course and dessert. I have a few things to add, then I’ll send it off to wait in Victor’s long list of projects.

4. Then there is The Doom Healer. This is where attachment sneaks up on me, because the series would be a force for the good if it could grab the world. I can’t help wanting it to succeed, not because I want to make lots of money, not because I want to be famous, not because of all the work I’ve put into it, but because it is the best tool I have devised for carrying on my job as a Professional Grandfather.

5. I have quite a few projects sitting around and occasionally add to them. One is The Protector, the sequel to Guardian an… oops, Maraglindi.

6. And then things like this frequently happen. This morning, I woke with the following demanding to be recorded:

Monday night, Michael went to sleep as usual.

Tuesday morning, he woke as an octopus.

At first he thought it was a dream — who wouldn’t?

I have no idea where it is going. It may end up as a new story in Lifting the Gloom, or an independent short story, or a new novel, or an unfinished file gathering dust within my computer.

All those possible outcomes are fine. For now, it is fun.

---

People who comment on this post will be rewarded with a big blast of inner peace. Whether you do comment or not, please visit my fellow round robiners below:

Beverley Bateman
Diane Bator
Marci Baun
Victoria Chatham
Judith Copek
Rhobin L Courtright
Fiona McGier
Anne Stenhouse
Skye Taylor
Connie Vines