Writing is the truest form of magic.
it creates battles more real than the ones we fight internally every single day,
it gives us worlds more real than our own,
it turns us inward and makes it look outward,
it lets us talk to ghosts,
we commune with the dead when we find words better off unsaid,
Often the fears holding us back aren’t the ones we think. Usually, they’re the strange ones our mind can’t rationalize out of, so it shoves them deep into the back caverns of our mind.
They’re safe here and there’s only a tiny chance you’ll accidentally stumble into them.
Well, I’ve found one of those recently, and it’s caused me to question a lot of what I’ve been doing, and has been a little shitty to look at.
The fabled fear is fear of routine.
What happens when the real world feels too real? What happens when we feel too deeply into the mundanity? What happens when we forget to escape? Better yet, what happens when we do?
Is intoxication freedom? Is an open perspective any easier than a closed one? Is a life spent seeking novelty any less valuable than one spent embedded in routine?
Your problems are probably boring, but don’t worry most of mine are too.
What if instead of measuring the success of our lives by the good and by ‘counting our blessings’ and creating a ‘grateful state of mind’, we measured our lives by the interestingness of our problems?
We define the word use by the amount of measurable value we can get from any given thing. This line of thinking extends from our industrial revolution-esque upbringing. A world where efficiency matters more than soul.
The restricted definition of use restricts the amount of usefulness we can get from any given topic. We expect results, we expect happiness, and we expect direction. But, do we every really possess any of these things?
At the time of writing this, I have too many unfinished drafts I’m slogging through. As well as a backlog of ideas I want to pour my time and energy into once those are finished. The river never really ends. And that’s okay.
We need to keep the flow going, when we choke the flow of our creativity by stumbling over our own need to be perfect and release the best-selling book in the world we cut off the flow. We tell our muse, who is already temperamental enough, to kindly ‘eff off’, for a little while while we sit with our own self-doubt.
All of the words in the world have already been uttered.
All the topics that are near and dear to your heart have been written about before.
But, none of this really matters.
What matters is your voice.
What matters is your story.
What matters is how you filter the world around you.
Insecurity is just below the surface of any interaction we have throughout the day. I may be, nay, I am, overly sensitive and too aware for my own good.
But, the fact we have to work hard to feel comfortable in our own skin suggests something much deeper going on.
A lot of the personal problems we face are a manifestation of a larger culture. One in which the artist is shunned and participating in the larger economic unfolding is more important than art or expression ever could be. We all have to eat, right?
Maybe we’re not supposed to be looking for moments of bliss and happiness to be the norm? In pursuing spiritual ideals we tend to lean towards one end of the spectrum or the other. Forgetting that balance actually comes from the middle.
My rebellious nature tends to pull me towards the extreme spectrum. A kind of subtle extremism, born out of stubbornness and a thirsting quest to drink from every kind of spring.
We love looking outside the walls of our flesh to find objects that define us. We are what we own. What we own consumes us.
Not all objects are bad. I’m not advocating we all strip our clothes and walk naked into the forest, cultivating a lifestyle off the land. Although that does sound enticing.