Collection of thoughts:

Our Dreams

Why does the idea of writing sounds more charming then the act of sitting and doing it? It is a dream because it is literally experienced only in my dreams rather than reality. And it’s much easier there. I say the writer life is so romantic and what I want, yet it is all self-image. It’s a dream because nothing of my reality signifies that I am willing to commit to it. That I actually will accomplish at the level I dream I will. True, but the fact that people are growing up eating vegetables, sitting on benches, walking their dogs, doesn’t mean some of us can’t go to the moon. Collectively we are dreamers.

 

Waiting for inspiration

I procrastinate because I am awaiting that angelical divine insight to feed me a line or a story. It never comes. And when I try to write without that it comes out more plain and inspiration less than I imagine. I am trying to label and understand what is in me before it can be released. I have an idea of how and what should come out and the translator from feeling to words never does its job properly. All my work comes out with a sense of frustration rather than success. So I stagnate, until I erupt with the desire to write anything.

 

Quick starts but no follow through

Every new project begins as me putting the petal to the metal; my work is full of kick starts, surges of belief and energy, ready to finally aim and fire. But what is it but an empty beginning. The ability to maintain passion is the challenge. Starting it is the easy part.

 

Blurring the lines

How can I blur the lines of what a writer should be, and what I am? It makes me very self-conscious that I write so outside of the box. But I am just chasing the label less, following a scent that takes me at times beyond the city walls, beyond the predictable. Writing lately is a test of faith because I usually don’t know what it is exactly that I am writing. I am getting more and more in-love with going further and further away from knowing. How deep is the rabbit hole of unknowns? Writing takes you to the unknown because we have no idea what the destination really is. Knowing what you are going to write is like putting a blockade in my way saying that it HAS to happen this way. Being free is frantic because you have no direction. I am on my way and I don’t know where that is.

 

 

 

 

Passionate now, forgotten after

I feel like my goal is to experience dramatic bursts of self-expression. This entertains me now, yet afterword, it immediately is unimportant and done, and I am already focused on the next one coming through me. I have to accept I do that for the moment – there is no mourning of unpublished work, discoveries not shared, and there is no future moment of fulfillment or reward or material thank you. Life’s become a firework, bright one moment, gone the next. Embrace that.

 

The Label less writer

To think I can’t be put in a box. What makes a writer is not if he is a novelist or a self-help writer. It’s if you take a bunch of words on paper and shows it to people. I don’t have to label this, or feel that I have to be categorized in order to write. This is why people don’t start, or quit their jobs, because there’s not always labels and answers to define where we are going. People don’t leave jobs a lot of times because they are scared of the unknown. Of what they don’t know they will discover.

 

Who am I?

I don’t ask who am I and it’s mostly because I am scared of the answer being blank. That’s it’s not who I have been for the past 28 years. That who I am, what I believe in, is incongruent to what I discover. I’m scared of the shock of that, and the now what feeling. Maybe “Who am I” is a daily discovering, rather than a guaranteed label.  Maybe who I think I am is only a small limited piece of myself. Maybe the whole picture of me is more than I can imagine. It’s terrifying to start blank.

 

 

What is true?

So what is truth? Is it the ability to clearly and orderly be labeled? Or is the willingness to say what’s on your soul rather than what will be embraced, be predictable, or accepted. If I was crying while writing this, would it be a holy experience? I’d say so. I’ve been to the temples, mountains, gurus, and days of silence, and felt less sometimes then I feel while writing. That’s why it’s sacred for me. This was a place where I find truth, rather than admire the truths that others have found. Sacred sites give you the impression you can buy your way to spirituality, that you can inherit it. That it’s a destination on the list of places.

 

Addiction

Why does addiction override my logic? Why is our body built to chase what makes us feel intense, even if it is harmful, hurtful, and even when we tell ourselves we want to stop? We are intensity addicts. We think we will be better people if we stop, yet somehow that alone isn’t enough to change us. Logically addiction is self-destruction, and we can’t logically outsmart our way through things. Maybe addiction is a fear of the unknown.

 

 

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A fully finished blogpost

The best part about life is our desire to distract ourselves. Perhaps we begin something out of our desire for something new, and don’t finish it because of our desire for the next thing new. It’s easy to begin a marathon, the first step you are the least drained physically, but the point of a marathon is what you must become to finish it.

I had a scenario in my routine last week which really rocked my boat. I was about to go to an auto show, and before I left I noticed a half finished project on my wall – it was an index card web of my journals, with the desire to interconnect my past few years, on the big topics of travel, writing, career, love, veganism, etc, into a giant mind web. I praised, almost worshipped this project in its early beginnings, when it was a new innocent idea. Yet, now here it is. Nothing like I imagined, like a decoration, an antique taking shelf space. I loved it but wasn’t ready for it to be a success. This day I was planning to go to an auto show, walk the seawall there and stop by a Starbucks in the afternoon. That was the plan atleast, but this realization that I was constantly delaying and distracting myself from finishing projects arose, and taught me a lot, and I wanted to expand on that.

 

I was moving at the end of the month so I realized I had to remove it, so I did so impulsively, and I got a huge wave of disappointment wash over me after. It struck me very intensely. I felt I was a failure for having no follow through. That the only thing I can show up for is my work that pays me a wage, where there is a threat if I don’t show, rather than a project that comes from my heart. My priorities felt totally unbalanced.

I felt like all of us get halfway through a project, and then gravitate to anew scenery. A new event we are invited to, a new place we want to visit, letting loose after work, coffees with friends, family, etc. How much we view completion, or anything that challenges us, as drudgery. As a small micro piece of our lives, creativity feels like the most expendable part of us. A project started with passion, and then forgotten, ending only because we contracted ourselves to do it; out of obligation, out of pity

 

I don’t know what is more real. What I said last week or what I said last month. How about how that weighs to what I’m saying now. Who’s the judge? What’s the priority? How does one choose to align what one said a month ago with what one is saying today?  Its feeling like a scenic procrastination, an idyllic idle when what I do now is contradicting what I said I wouldn’t be doing.

I didn’t say a month ago I would be going to a car show, I said a month ago I hope I will be finishing this project. I listened a month ago but not a month later.

I didn’t act on solidarity and instead acted on impulse. This project, the one I thought about and carried around. And now its feeling heavy, realizing you may be one of those who makes promises and doesn’t keep them.

When we begin, we wouldn’t sacrifice it or imagine such a fruitless ending, so why now, weeks and months down the road, is the temptation so strong. Is an outcome like this so acceptable? The will to continue a project is so low.

 

These frivolous experiences are light, and just require us to show up once rather than consistently.  Writing I have to show up a certain way – I have to be focused. How I show up is reflective of the work that is produced. Yet maybe elsewhere I can show up half ass, pissy with no accountability, and there is no justice there. In here, I am putting myself on the stage, and the attitude I bring is the attitude I will perform. I am transparent here, rather than hidden behind the screen. These letters on a screen reflect me as much as anything else does.

Away from this are crowds of people, rather where our personal project can feel isolating. Sometimes we embark on a journey just to leave our comfortable surroundings of our home, rather than cause it’s authentically the time to do so.

And writers block is a big reason too. I got half way because that’s as far as the first wind of passion took me. The other half required creativity that I said wasn’t good enough, or maybe not coming in at all. I felt justified to slow down, to not add dry content to the project, yet instead I swept it under the rug, with no trace or accountability of how long it should wait there. I wait indefinitely, till it bubbles under the rug…

 

We are so sudden, able to seek knowledge or come up with an idea so quickly, but so vulnerable, able to collapse and not withstand the work it takes to make an idea a reality. Stamina is as valuable as information. Resilience is as important as method. Follow through is inseparable, and just as essential as the idea itself.

 

The hunter gatherer exists; I can feel him in times like this. There is no sea wall, no auto show, and no other things.  During a time where we can learn about anything, do so much, travel so far, it feels most contradictory to ignore all of them and focus on one thing. I’m a million years ago right now, all I have is nothing but the task infront of me. In its most stripped down basic and boring form. That is the prized possession today; it’s like an eclipse when I enter a mood like this. Not overstimulated, not desensitized. Not hiding behind the modern world, and not afraid to leave it for abit. Not afraid to be missing out.

It’s all an illusion, being amongst the most modern times, and the skill most untrained to me is to come to a place inside where none of it exists for a few hours. It’s bloody ironic.

 

It feels like we spend our time to get more money and spend our money to enrich our moments in time. Maybe if I spent money on a group program where we came together 3 times a month to work on a project I would have some structure and follow through. Lately it all gets lost among the muck and dreams of day to day unknowns and feelings.

I get the temptation to just give in and ignore this feeling. Life saying “Come back to us, we love the ‘you’ that does nothing! That isn’t ambitious, isn’t accountable! He’s the Adam who spends and will buy a coffee, lunch, and he pays for events and thrift shop clothes! Without you I loose a customer today! Come out, we love you in moments like this! You don’t need to do your project, I have a seawall, a Starbucks, a car show, a Saturday, come hang out!” Lazyness and procrastination will save you I think is that message, but clearly it didn’t do its job.

Does anyone else ever feel like they are eluding themselves? That they were following a faulty plan, an untested truth, a delusion. When the only way to make sense of it is to not question it, or to not sit with it?

I feel so bought into not striving for personal goals and just go pay some money and experience someone else’s success. The man who built the coffee store, the person who built that car, the one who wrote that book; I write to stop being a consumer and to ignite the desire to add myself to the world. Rather than to always absorb, I’m trying to find a part of me that shares.

It’s the fact that I am falling head first into this fork in the that road bothers me. The jealousy that everything was going ‘perfect’ until I seen my half-finished project. Damn you project! Wanting your time with me! Cant you see im busy fulfilling my needs (wants).

But why did taking you off the wall hurt? Why did I care so much?

Eventually, anything I do will lead me here. That eventually I will confront the weak spot within my confidence, it is bound to happen. Where the blind spot gets the spot light, that’s the trigger moment. Eventually an idea will turn out to be a distraction, a dreamy fantasy, an unfinished agreement. It takes a different Adam to translate idea to reality, and that Adam, who’s dependable to go from thought to creation, isn’t around enough. What good is the dreamer if nothing changes? If nothing is created, and the dreamer doesn’t experience his dream, just thinks about it. Maybe I’d have fewer ideas if I had spent more of that time actually working on them.

My idea felt like a gold rush and ended up like a ghost town. A theme park during its golden age, now it’s just a collector’s item, a different era, a memory of those good old days. It’s the senior over looked for the youth, for speed, for these sort of times.

I wanted better scenery. Staying in this room and finishing my project while it’s a sunny day and there are plenty of options, it’s that force that’s hard. This revelation is a strange adrenaline rush. Going off the beaten path and finding a huge long wonky bridge to a new land, but the bridge is ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Do you cross it? Is there a certain desperation that I feel I HAVE to cross the bridge, even if I’m depended on by others. Is it worth the risk? There are safer curiosities to explore, why do this one? Just cause its infront of me? Do I just rationalize, say the universe sent it for me and now I can feel justified to get away with anything?

What sort of reaction response exists within me when I loose my cool over something like this?

Well, the windstorm is winding down. The project is peeling off the wall. The stardom and closure of wishing I did it, self-actualization, settled and decomposed into – a half finish project – such a hopeful beginning and a fruitless ending. I had so much hope, and now I’m mourning you. I feel ashamed, I couldn’t raise you. I couldn’t commit to showing up when the buzz was gone. And now I wonder is this a calling?  This feels illogically scary, I feel strong just sitting with this huge waft of confusion, weakness, and loss of momentum. Why is what’s meaningful and personal to me going so low on my priority list? What will it take for me to not let burnout rule my life?

I represent the hoarder, accepting I have too much shit, so it’s time to sacrifice, to downsize my freedom. What an ironic thing to sacrifice. What could possibly be more truthful than freedom, who in their right mind sacrifices it? But the freedom to do anything isn’t real if I don’t have the will to keep a promise. Sacrificing the fact that I have to say ‘no’ to something to say ‘yes’ something. That truth is so big.

I remember being at a festival and seeing a snake eat a frog. There was a moment of mourning for the frog’s death, and also a strong feeling of compassion to imagine somehow saving the frog. Yet what does the snake eat? Let it starve? Saving one kills the other. Some moments are that black and white. To save the frog now kills the part of the food chain below it that the frog eats. The snake eating the frog saved something below the frog from being eaten.

…

Clearly a lot of my self-worth and confidence was invested in this project. And when I admitted it was half done, I felt my confidence reduced to half as well. I was parallel to that project. I over attached myself to my creative results, to my accomplishments. I feel really windless in my sails at a moment like that. Like all I’ve said was a lie. But really I’ve just made too many commitments to other things. A few less ‘yes’, a couple more ‘no’, and maybe that’s all the scale needs to be in balance. In its simplest form that probably is true.

Edited:

We play that programming cause in that moment we were lost. We’re weak, and felt like it was more meaningful to not resist and let things happen then it was to step up my energy and let that solve the situation. This project feels difficult to edit because it’s so victimized. It’s has a lot of shame, regret, and pity. It feels very un-empowering at times and I wonder what its value is. I start a new commitment when I’m weak and now strong me has to sit with it, own it, and deal with it. It is a challenge to not abandon this too, and to not add this to the growing list of half-finished projects. This is my dilemma. How can I transform to an attitude where I can accomplish my goal, rather than a place where I feel justified to quit everything. I don’t think quitting is right, but I also don’t think doing things mindlessly, aimlessly, robotically is right. Where is the right?

…

Saying ill do my project tomorrow is a false sense of completion, and an excellent camouflaged procrastination. Consider this next time something feels good enough to start – to sign up, and say will it be good enough to finish. Assessing a follow through may solve this from reoccurring.

I find this admission is a very empowering form of weakness. The failure of distracting myself from my promise a month ago, and the failure of following through on my plans of today. Now I’ve failed twice, last months and todays, ouch. Atleast I’m witnessing it.

When it feels like dominoes. When one thing comes down and suddenly it feels like it all is coming down. Why let this all in. Why not protect ourselves. We are a ying and yang, dominance and vulnerability, breakdowns and soaring highs. Finished and never beginning.

I feel like I’ve broken a promise to the divine. I’ll still go out and this was all a purge just to show I knew something but didn’t change something. After all this do I have to follow through, or am I jumping right back into the stream that shook me. Maybe I like how it feels superficial. All my reasons for delaying, yet, I’m so desperate for some sense of accomplishment. I feel inadequate compared to others at times and that can fuel a lot of the ambition, but it must be self-driven, not in attempt to be better than others focused.

Looking for a conclusion when you are still on the introduction. This wasn’t a contract of change, a demolishing of the last plan. Just a lovely isolating woah moment. We feel like nothing without the perfect job, perfect partner, perfect vacation. Well for me it was the perfect project. The goal is not to transform things from a half finished project, to a finished half loved project. Feeling like we never write a blog post cause we never think it’s perfect. Well, I hope this teaches me something and shows me to focus on less projects so I can have more follow through.