Still alive

Sleep definitely helps. With a lot of things. It is amazing how much easier it is to do stuff when I've had enough sleep. Who would have thunk? :)

I'm currently working on the practice paper. It's still daunting, but not as much as it was a couple of days ago, and my ideas are starting to crystallise. I have realised that I have never really been confident of my ability to practice, and have not trusted myself to make the right decisions about practicing. Somehow I always doubt myself, and find it really hard to measure or evaluate my practice. I think there is a lot of guilt attached to my practice - I feel that either I'm not doing enough or I'm not doing the right thing. I'm not really sure exactly what practice is yet, but I think I'm getting closer.

Stephen Nachmanovitch, in his book Free Play, describes practice as the "encounter with the gap between what we feel and what we can express", which is very similar to the way I feel about this paper right now. I think it's all in my head somewhere, but I am finding it really hard to get it down on paper.