Protected by work and a busy life in general, I have avoided extensive reflective thinking all my life, yet I was a thinker by a profession, an English teacher.  Not having time to reflect provides a kind of safety net.  A person does the best he can given his circumstance.  In my case a melancholy spirit was held at bay.

My limited ability to think went out the door when I retired.  I fought it as I still do by staying a busy as possible.  I do embrace the new freedom to ponder, too.  The trouble is that a group of thoughts can stick around for along time.  My extensive reading is a kind of delivery system away from thinking about one topic too much.  On certain days I wear headphones all day to keep thoughts as bay.

Today I watched This Old House and saw a segment about a company in Boston that is developing what may become the first home-wide software to monitor individual appliance consumption.  Using a tablet or phone, a homeowner can see in real time what the effect of running a washing machine is, how much electricity a stove is using, and what is being consumed by the entire dwelling.  Turn on an appliance and a circle pops up on a screen to show what is being run. The long term data can be collected and managed in a way that far exceeds the month-by-month bar graph of consumption that shows up my electric bill.  The possibilities for such a system boggle my mind.  Having the free time to stick with such a fresh way to approach electric consumption interests from the grid to appliance monitoring to data analysis.  I can begin to see into what can be done.  Pleasurable for my brain.

A Texas immigrant who came here as an infant decades ago is in today’s news.  At last, she is proof  of illegal voting.  She voted in 2014 and 2016.  She was found out and convicted to eight years in jail and then deportation.  Deep in The New York Times story we learn that she thought her permanent green card status and over twenty years in Texas meant that she was a citizen.  She thought that working and paying taxes made her one of us.  My mind keeps fumbling with the notion of eight years in jail for voting.  My mind works her situation over and over.  Not pleasurable.

I have carried these thinking projects all day.  They go round and round my brain because I do not have children to attend to and a job that takes over thinking time.  Thinking is a pleasure and a curse.