“Let it be let it be” by Lennon-Mcartney.
“Do be do be do” — Alan Watts.
Early and often I ask, “am I being the way that I want to be?” It’s different than asking if I am doing what I want to do. What I do is inherently limited, but the character that I am playing is always being written and re-written by me.
“The wise soul treating the easy as hard, doesn’t find anything hard.” — Lao Tzu.
In my youth, classmates, teachers, and people in general admired my ability to just sit down and write something, almost fully-formed, and in my own voice. It was original, lyrical, and cohesive. And this skill, of just being able to pull words out of my own mind, I took it for granted. I didn’t think of it as a special skill. I took it as a natural consequence of my having spent a lot of time with my thoughts, practicing composing them, putting them to “paper.” Of course I would *like* for people to like my words, but the quality that I was able to produce had specifically to do with the time I spent listening to my own internal voice, which is strongly influenced by music, poetry, and having spent a lot of time reading good writing.
This intense interest in reading, I now see, was a form of escapism. After I obtained my driver’s license, and even before, I would practically camp out at the library. It was perceived by others to be a wholesome activity, but I experienced it as complete cognitive freedom. And, although I lacked role models in my immediate environment, I experienced no lack of role models through books.
George Orwell, Earnest Hemmingway, Virginia Woolf, and others, influenced a romanticized experience of being a writer. So every time I put my fingers to the keyboard, I was connecting with them. I was emulating them. I was calling upon their support and guidance.
But it didn’t come without a massive ego investment to be seen as a “writer”, or for writing to play a significant role in my life, or to “find myself” in a way that seemed to require living an interesting, unconventional life (which I did end up doing). But at times, it veered into the neurotic, and self-destructive. A writer, in the pursuit of self-discovery, might flirt with self-abuse, engage in romantic toxicity, or explore the depths of despair. This was all just normal #writerthings.
Somewhere, between my 20s, and 40s, I lost the plot of “being a writer.”
Not for lack of external encouragement, but for when I stopped encouraging myself did that passion… go into hibernation. I decided to center and pursue other parts of my identity. The parts that paid the bills. The parts that wanted to heal. The parts that didn’t feel fully formed. The parts that perceived so much suffering in the world, and just wanted to make it all better. How?
One of the magic spells that I constantly reiterate is “nothing is wasted”.
Today I circle back, like a prayer, like saying the rosary, I find myself here again, writing in this space, and I can look back and both see how far I’ve come and also that I’m right back where I started. Nothing is lost, and much has matured.
I was praying the rosary last night, and one of the ways that Mary came through to me was to encourage me to write. And I think that connecting with that healthy mother energy was showing me where my resilience is, and what it means to nurture my creative mind. I think that with emerging technology being what it is, we live in a moment, in a generation, in an age where strengthening the muscle of being able to develop the depth and coherence of our thinking without the assistance of technology is incredibly valuable. So I treat this like praying the rosary. It’s about spending time with. It’s about developing affinity for. It’s not about the outcome (do be do be do) it’s about the journey (the labyrinth).
There are so many little threads above that I could pick up and develop. Perhaps each one is a bead that is going to prompt me to say my future morning prayers.