Focus

When you listen to God/Instincts/that inner voice inside of you, there's no way you can be wrong.

What I hoped would happen in regards to my finances has happened because, well, I trusted in that inner voices, and out of nowhere, a way has been made without a refund check. A man who labors will reap the rewards he seeks.

I'm re-reading Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin because the first time I read it, I was too young, and while I remember it being greatly influential at the time, I didn't have the life experiences to really put what I learned into practice. The desperation the main characters feel when they must confront how to best handle their worldly instincts with those aligned to a higher purpose is present to me in several ways, currently my battle with quitting smoking, which I've failed to do. Although I know that in the long run smoking has no positive benefits whatsoever, it's remarkable that the urge to puff is so ingrained in my daily rituals that a day without cigs is unthinkable. Quite literally, a strong agitation grips me when I see the last two or three cigs in the box, and I start to calculate whether the final ones will get me through the night, whether I'll have to run by the store, or just how long will I have to wait before lung cancer/emphesyma/poverty force me out of my habit.

The higher purpose of what I should do is without a doubt more beneficial, yet the pull of the nicotine, the image I can project, and the habits reinforced by the cigarette are so alluring it's hard to put them down. A similar instance takes place in the book where John, a young boy brow-beaten by his parent's religious fanaticism, stands on top of a hill, gazing down at the city before him. He sees the perils of Hell throughout the city, but cannot resist descending into the belly of the town, watching a worldly moving, and identifying so deeply with the woman in the film who so proudly sticks it to everyone who knows her. I so got it, and James Baldwin's queerness saturates his writing, crafting beautiful scenarios and descriptions with which I easily identify.

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I'm trying to learn Korean, but dammit, I have trouble remembering the vocab. This has never been a problem in the beginning stages of any language I've studied. Any suggestions on what I should do?

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