I Think About Writing
“Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.”
Hi Small Farma-ers,
There are those moments in life when you feel yourself shifting and changing. When the next version of yourself comes into focus and you realize you’ve left behind the parts of you that weren’t meant for the long haul. It’s an interesting foray into adulthood to feel yourself more capable of caring for your mind and body while also intimately knowing the past versions that flailed and suffered and grasped for a life line.
I turned 43 recently, and while I was always an introspective person it’s surreal to see the contents of my own inner world grow and change. The familiar tapes that once played in my head are being swapped out for more sustainable lines of thinking that honor what is to come. I no longer see my future as a nebulous behemoth that goes on into infinity and while that might sound like a downer it is actually such a gift.
I take comfort in knowing that the choices I’m making every day are the details that comprise the bulk of who I am. What I feed myself, the words I choose, the people I surround myself with and the presence I have in even the smallest tasks are all relevant to the person I will be for the duration. I want to teach everyone this, but then I remember that it took me all this time to learn it authentically so the best I can do is share…
How many creative ideas that float through our minds go unrealized? I think about writing all of the time. In my dreams I often compose chapters of some hibernating memoir, waking up to the faint memory of language that flowed out of me as naturally as my breath. I feel how satisfied and realized my subconscious is in those moments of pure expression.
In my car I turn thought processes into entire articles, imagining the publication that would be perfectly suited to my particular set of musings. Theories bubble up about relationships, self-care, alignment, capitalism, pop-culture, sex and health, but when I get home I tell myself:
“On Saturday morning I’ll write”
Or
“After five minutes of Tik Tok puppies I’ll write”
Or
“I cooked today and cooking is creative so I don’t need to write today”
And the worst one…
“Someone is probably already doing that and better than me.” UGH!
Most of the ideas go unexplored and die in my iPhone notes app after getting pushed further and further down by the likes of toilet paper and dog treats.
In her book, “Big Magic,” Elizabeth Gilbert says a thousand beautiful things that articulate the importance of pursuing one’s particular creative passions. She talks about how we all have gems inside of us that are waiting to be discovered and it’s up to us whether we do the investigative work of finding them and bringing them to life. She also reminds us that when we choose not to breathe life into an idea, it tends to keep floating around in the creative ether until someone else picks it up and does just that.
I have developed such an intimate relationship with my desire to write and create (and my penchant for procrastination) that I treat the bubbling ideas as friends that pop in and and out of my life. I try to be gentle with them, greeting them when they arrive and then giving them space to leave when I opt to search bucket bags on eBay instead. It’s a meditation.
The Universe Conspires
I’m also in conversation with the universe about writing. As soon as I started this blog post, it seemed that everywhere I turned I was hearing podcasts and authors talk about something similar.
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I turned on one of my favorite podcasts (Without a Country Podcast) and the host, Corinne Fisher, was talking about how creative ideas belong to no one and they will find a maker other than you if you wait too long. She referenced Rick Rubin’s documentary and his book which also popped up several times in the same week.
I also opened my email to an article on The Good Trade called, “A Case for Giving Your Creative Ideas Away.” The author of that article shared a quote from Annie Dillard that was part of this paragraph:
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
―Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
This is one of those Truman Show type of situations where I feel like the whole of existence has been tailored to me lest I miss the entire point of being alive in this body in this life. I would say that’s self-absorbed except I think the same can be true for everyone if we pay attention.
When we talk about the universe conspiring to help us succeed this is what that means. You will receive nudges that alert you to the fact that you are on the right path. Often times, they aren’t even nudges they are full body tackles from another realm that remind you that the time is now and The Real Housewives can wait.
Be Creatively Brave
The crux of creativity lies somewhere inside listening to an inner spark and being able to put your ego aside for a minute to tend to that idea and give it life. When we skip out on the opportunities to do so, the “good” ideas can lose potency. It takes courage to roll with what comes into your creative imagination. I’ve learned that if I don’t roll with my ideas, their energy fades into skeletal remains like a dream I didn’t write down and all I’m left with is, again, some flimsy iPhone note buried in my to do list.
Gilbert says, “Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy,” and as you can tell from some of the ideas that lurk in my iPhone notes necropolis I definitely have potential to be a brave weirdo:
Why we share childhood pictures with romantic love interests
My subconscious is a doll house of ego projections
If I forget about societal norms, I’m happy when I’m single
Three Men and My Intuition
The psychological revelations of Bachelor in Paradise
Stay tuned for the next newsletter?!
Journaling is Also Writing
My journal gets the most attention of any of my writing pursuits. In it are the thoughts of all the parts of me that experience big emotions, because those parts are so loud that they demand expression. Writing gives me almost instantaneous catharsis from whatever stuck emotion is happening.
I talked recently with a friend about the ethics of reading someone’s journals after they die. The sticky point being that journals are often reserved for the most private and fraught versions of ourselves which we can forget are just versions. Would any of us want to be reduced to the part of ourselves that is channeling rage, jealousy or heartbreak in a private space? Probably not.
In fact, I know the feeling of having my little brother unearth my teenage journal (leather bound and self important) and orate my tearful, terrible poetics on unrequited love. What a moment of reckoning. Is THAT who I am?! The drama!
But that’s what is special about writing or whatever creative pursuit lights you up. There are so many ways to engage in it that reflect the myriad disco-ball versions of ourselves that can show up in the world.
The Line Between Promotion and Expression
I think this feels overwhelming at times. We are bombarded with messages about branding ourselves, so it can feel pointless to write anything that isn’t carefully curated to sell something, promote oneself, or complete a part of our branded image. Gilbert says:
“But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.”
More and more I’m recognizing how integral our honest expression is to the fabric of the world we live in. It isn’t frivolous to share ourselves. It’s a way that we can show gratitude for our own existence, by honoring what’s authentic to us and being brave enough to take chances on the stuff that isn’t refined, refurbished or meant for mass consumption.
As technology neatly serves up so much of the thinking that used to take more effort (spelling, writing content, composing text message and emails), it’s also dire that we don’t forget how to weave critical thoughts together that arise from our inherently creative inner worlds. What springs forth naturally from our core selves is the stuff that makes our existence magical.
Shame is so Last Season
As I get older, my level of self-consciousness has been on a pleasingly steady decline. I’ve realized deep down that no one is thinking about me as much as I assume they are, I take things less personally, and I recognize the importance of letting go and moving forward. The less affected I am by the gaze of others, the more freedom I feel to share what’s inside, no longer banishing it all to dark, shameful inner hallways. What a treat!
The call then is to share and keep sharing. Even unfinished ideas are fertile and rich. Imperfect pieces of writing or art that haven’t said all there is to say are still good and purposeful. We have to make an effort to resist this idea that what we share must have monetary, promotional or even popular value. Otherwise, it becomes increasingly hard to allow ourselves to believe that just existing authentically is enough.
I recently saw a description of a workshop class in Portland, Maine that’s called “Making Bad Art” and in it the host said: “We will share and work to engage with each others’ work as a relational and communal process to move from the binary of good and bad art…This is a practice and must be practiced for learning to settle.”
This is it! What few communal spaces that we have in American society are being eclipsed by technology, blind partisanship, social media standing in for connection, societal value based on money, image-making, etc…that we stand to forget what the essence of being human is. What are the things that would be just as nourishing about our lives if we were sitting around a campfire with loved ones without our modern accoutrements? (I’d be lost without contact lenses and allergy pills, but let’s put that aside)
You can feel when creative expression comes from the gut and I am convinced that the ripple effects are a large part of what is asked of each of us during the short time of our existence on this plane. This year, I’m making the promise to myself to share more of what’s emerging in my inner world because it’s my hunch that this is what connects us as humans. And what do we need more than connection?
Can you relate?! Comment below!