Sitting outside is a bit like a game. The sun is pleasant, but after a while becomes unpleasant. So you move into the shade but it is too cold. Inside it is even colder.

Today, Sunday, has turned out to be a day of reading and writing. I have foregone the temptation to lose myself in stories--that will be desert for bedtime, and too much desert too early leaves one feeling sick. So I am supping on the nutrition of meditative reading and writing. It does get tiring, but fresh vegetables too can be tiring, yet the body needs them.

I really am not in a sociable mood these days. Apart from work, I have room in my heart for only a few close relationships, and those are almost exclusively family. For acquaintances my communications trickle out as a quiet, narrow stream of email. How can I fully participate in the world under these constraints? How can I achieve the "random acts of heroic kindness" expressed in my mission? And yet, knowing myself and my energies, I know that this is the right pattern, the most efficient. It is a life more of contemplation than activity, with activity happening, when necessary, in short, premeditated bursts of concentrated energy.