What do I even focus on?

My life has been very busy lately and I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I am just grateful that at least a little bit of the chaos I'm navigating is caused by what I want to achieve and that I am able to direct some of my efforts towards those ends. It is a privilege that not everyone has and I try to be mindful of that.

But still, because of all the things I need to get done, I need to prioritize. And with that comes the constant sense that maybe I'm focusing on the wrong things.

For example, should I be spending time writing this blog post? Is this effort that would be better directed elsewhere? I don't know. Does my desire to record what is happening as it is happening important enough to push back some of the other things I need to be taking care of? Is anyone even reading this besides me?

A part of the problem is that I am not in full control of myself. I get ideas, and if these are ideas that I can possibly execute then I feel a nervous energy that does not recede until it is done. This blog post is such an idea, my novel was that kind of idea, this whole website and the ways I want to enhance it are those kinds of ideas.

Which brings me to the one idea for the website that I was able to execute. The kuffiyeh pattern that is now a part of the top 'banner' of the site. I am by no means an artist and I am also a very poor web designer and to accomplish this took me hours of effort, a lot of reaching into my bag of tech tricks, and learning a whole bunch more besides (Does anyone want a blog post of what I've learned about svg and css?). None of it would be possible without the work of a whole bunch of other people whose tools I used, whose expertise I read on sites like stack overflow, and whose work I remixed.

Was this a good use of my time? I don't know. It many ways it might even be counterproductive.

But priority isn't just about time management. It's also about ideals.

One of the things that I struggle with as I continue on this journey is the fact that my novel, while it has a lot of very strong opinions about a lot of things, is also a work of escapism. Whoever reads it, in fact anyone who is reading this blog post, is, by my design, not engaging with the very real problems that are going on in the world today as they do so.

That is, to me, a problem. It's not a major problem, but it is a problem nonetheless.

And so my solution, to balance my desire to write words that entertain, with my desire to not detract from the more important things in the world, is to display one symbol of them throughout. So that even though they might not at the front of the mind of whoever is reading these words... at least they will remain in their consciousness.

Will the pattern, to me a symbol of resilience in the face of oppression and tyranny, cause some potential supporters to react with disgust, close the website and dismiss me and anything I do? Will I lose readers and sales because of it?

Maybe. The future is not for me to see. There is a reason that my faith tells me to, in the end, leave my trust in the hands of the Almighty.

But one of the secrets of life I have learned is that we cannot take care of all of our priorities.

And the desire to be all things to all people, to be liked by everyone, to sell sneakers even to Republicans, is one that I am choosing to put closer to the bottom of my own personal list of priorities.

It is what it is. And in the words that we have heard from Palestinians, time and again... is that God is Sufficient for me, and He is the best disposer of Affairs.

And to sign off, please keep praying for an end to the violence engulfing our world, and pushing for a Free Palestine, online, offline, everywhere that you can.