A year to do something

For some yet-to-be-ascertained reason, Julia Child has been on my mind for the last few months. It could be that her career transition from secret service to chef  could teach me a few things about making major changes or maybe just that I’ve been self-analyzing too much and the fact that we have the same initials is enough.  In any event, when I saw the movie trailer for Julie&Julia coming out this summer I paid attention.

The premise is based on a book which is based on the blog, The Julie/Julia Project, of spending one year cooking everything in Julia Child’s book, presumably with some expectation of great insight or achievement.  It occurred to me that I’ve passed this theme, ‘a year doing ____’ several times in the past six months. From Judith Levine’s year without spending to the blog, The Happiness Project , a continuation of a year studying happiness. And these are just the ones that garnered book deals.  There are photographers who have spent a year taking a picture of the same tree or scene every day for a year and people that have taken off for the wilds of another continent for a year, some getting book deals, but most not. These kinds of experiments aren’t really all that new; Henry David Thoreau’s Walden was in the same vein although he hung out at Walden Pond for 26 months and I don’t believe he had a specific calendar in mind when he started, although he did see it as an experiment.

So is this synchronicity or a delaying tactic for not getting other things done?

While my ego would rejoice in a book deal, I find that I’m more intrigued by the thought of trying to stick to something every day for a year.  There are plenty of things that I’ve done for longer than that but none that I can say I touched on a daily basis.  Just as there are projects that I’ve started and completed in far less time.  I’m doubtful of my ability to carry through on a year’s commitment to a project that isn’t work related.  Mostly because my bookshelves are riddled with blank books, each purchased with the intent that this was going to be the one that started the diary I would keep up. But also, I think I feel a little intimidated at the thought of ending something. In some ways it seems easier to contemplate a project that goes on forever, like that work-out routine I keep trying to implement, or moving somewhere exotic for an unspecified number of years than it does to set the end date before I even begin.

And then there’s that big problem of what the project is.  It wouldn’t be much fun to be a copycat and it’s not a good time for me to be taking off for Borneo anytime soon. Nor do I have money or time to spare. So what I need is a project that doesn’t take up much time but could last a year, doesn’t cost money, can be done locally and hasn’t been made into a book  yet. And that I’m interested in doing and that won’t turn into a job…  Maybe I could take a year thinking up ideas for how to spend a year? Yeah, maybe not.  I guess I’d better go off and think about this some more. Maybe inspiration will strike!

to be continued…

Technorati Tags: synchronicity, year-long projects