The case may be that I've lost interest in drawing, or perhaps that this slovenly, purportedly 'marathon' approach has gone awry; never have I seen so little improvement in drawing over so much time as in the (similarly, never before so scarce) hours spent doing so in this rusty dream. Perhaps learning better abides by the sprinting flame of passion...or it could be that I need standards for drawing: marathoners run, not walk. To eliminate or validate that latter possibility, starting tomorrow I've resolved to draw at least half an hour each day in the hopes that will lead somewhere. A monumental stride forward, I think we all know.

Learning is a strange thing. It cannot be broken down numerically or rationally, in the same way that our minds are in fact quite different from computers, machines...setting a baseline amount of time spent drawing each day is, I believe, suboptimal. Instead, search for the approach wherein "the monument falls into your hands while you strive for something else," as remarked a time ago. Alas, the dream has not settled into the slog and my striving has come up narrowminded. So right now, in lieu of the ideal, concrete standards for drawing would only help.

These days the mind feels more rigid and I wonder how we used to learn anything at all. That joy and fleetfooted thinking, been so long without them. Instead of using my mind I slip and I slip...until the day I will rise once more and finally start animating that episode. Of course, today I–who could not even draw half an hour–slip again. But as a child, I wonder, did I not slip too? It was not a matter of slippage. No, there was a better balance to thought in childhood times. Perhaps a sociocultural Sapir-Whorf phenomenon comes about as one ages.

Look where this decline has brought us, and now to fade to sleep, no more slipping...