It's dawning on me...

February dawn

There is no one direction my writing is taking me, and rather than fight that, I have to allow myself to wander. there is so much in this world that I find fascinating, why should I limit myself? Do I have to have a niche?

I've always loved being out in the open, the sky filtered only through trees. And I've never questioned that love. But when it comes to my writing, I'm constantly putting shackles on myself. Telling myself I can't write something because... well, because... I should be writing something else, I don't know anything about whatever it is I'm thinking of writing about, nobody wants to know about what I think, that my interests are too eclectic and it's better to have some "hook" that people can hang their interest in me on.

But that's all bullshit I tell myself because what it comes down to is I'm afraid someone will question my knowledge, intentions, morals. They'll question ME. Who I am. And to put myself in that position would require that I stand up for my views, for what I believe in.  Because I'm pretty damn sure that my views and beliefs will be very different from those of many people I know. I guess I'll have to grow a pair.

"Certainly you will write things that I won't be comfortable with. That's okay." This is something my husband said to me in response to my questioning him about his views on the direction some of my writing seems to be taking me. I want to say "I'm lucky" but really, what does luck have to do with any of it?

This is all in preface to what this blog post is really about. Yeah, I'm long winded. Those of you who really know me know that, hahaha. 

Back on January 1, I started eating paleo. No grains, beans, legumes, white potatoes. In January I avoided dairy also, but have now added a little back in. Lots of veggies, meat, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds, fruit. I'm doing it for health reasons, because grain and other starchy carbs really do a number on me healthwise, and I want to live a good long time.

So, along with reading several books and lots of blogs about paleo, I signed up for an email newsletter that alerted me to this blog post at Mark's Daily Apple on "8 Health Reasons to Have Sex (As If You Needed Them). The post is pretty SFW, with health info that for the most part I already knew. But it was  nice to see it brought up. All too often, sex is overlooked as a topic for the reason that it's a very loaded topic. What was that old cocktail party advice? No talking about politics, religion, or sex.

What I found interesting were the comments. There was the full range from snarky & sexist to sincerely interested. One of the comments linked to this article at Newsweek about the book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. (that links to his blog at Psychology Today) and Calcida Jetha', M.D. This reminded me that I'd been interested in this book last year (I'd put it on my Christmas list, but I guess Santa was too embarrassed to bring it), and had been reading Ryan's blog on occasion already. Here's a bit from the website:

"In the tradition of the best historical and scientific writing, SEX AT DAWN unapologetically upends unwarranted assumptions and unfounded conclusions while offering a revolutionary understanding of why we live and love as we do. A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you know about sex, marriage, family, and society."

So, I'm going to order it tomorrow, probably read it non-stop when it arrives, and write about my impressions of this supposedly controversial book.  I can't wait! 

Have any of you read it? What did you think?

So, yeah, it's almost midnight and this post is supposed to be a Thursday post! More tomorrrow!

NOTE: And thanks Craig for letting me know about that posting flub - Blogger was being weird last night and wasn't letting me save my post as I typed, so I typed the whole thing again before posting it finally. Apparently it was saved. It was very weird. So if you read the post during my night, there were duplicated paragraphs. Gone now! :)