Quite interestingly, I resolved after much consideration to undertake a reading of the diary of Samuel Pepys, the famed 17th century British diarist. I just searched the blog to see if and if yes, how many times, I had mentioned wanting to do this.
And what did I discover? Not only that I had mentioned this plan, but I had already been through this process back in 2007, when I borrowed a copy of Volume 1 of Pepys's diary and shared a brief reflection about it here. Back then I judged Pepys "(not) very reflective at all... Just flat out boring."
Well, those were the observations of the 41-year old me, father of a 7-year old and a soon-to-be-4-year old, a man with less time and less of an attention span. In my second reading of Pepys, just underway, I haven't yet seen a great deal of introspection, but there's been much to learn just in the first 10 pages or so. First off, I am intrigued by just how much time Pepys and his contemporaries spend getting and distributing cash. For some reason his role means that he has to pay some soldiers, who come to the office of his employer Mountagu, for whom Pepys served as administrator/clerk. There are all kinds of cash transactions going on, lots of toing and froing. It's a huge time suck for them, and a non-trivial security risk.
Also, they seem to eat nothing but meat and sweet stuff made of dairy, such as the sack-posset offered by some neighbor, thought to help Pepys's cold.
This time I will keep reading. I had better, after all. I now own the first volume. My guess is that it gets better and that more is revealed.
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