Are you happy? This is what you wanted. Right? To write more? Some kind of unspoke resolution, nothing public, so you wouldn't be held accountable. Something a bit more passive aggressive-- a piece of writing like this one. A sort of proof-is-in-pudding, stream of consciousness, first-thought-best-thought, lots-hyphens-and-dashes kind of post. This is what it looks like. Right?
Messy, incoherent. Not the beautiful Kerouacian haiku-like blurbs you envisioned, whilst walking in the rain around the reservoir. Posts like this one are much sexier when they still only possible ideas gyrating in your brain as the clouds move low and fast driving on the highway, drowning out your kids screaming.
You see yourself in a more Bohemian atmosphere. There is wine and smoke and late nights. Cool hats and maybe a bow tie. I will produce more than I consume, you whisper tiny promises to yourself. Less watching and reading, and more writing and strumming and creating.
Not so pretty though is it? Languishing in the all this blank space. The thoughts stumbling into each other like kids at a middle school dance. Each half baked metaphor appearing more ridiculous than the next. These acts of creation, this writing, this producing takes time and effort and struggle and pain and well.....it ain't easy.
Woah, woah, woah.....where did this chastising voice come from and who the hell are you yelling at? Yes, it does take time and yes smearing yourself into the blank spaces takes time. And yes, no one said art in any capacity was meant to be easy, but if we never start, then we will never create.
Sometimes, some nights, most nights we need to loosen the muscles, oil the wheels, and click clack these keys, to let the words and chords and whatever else needs to get out...get out. There is no need for grand resolutions or public announcements. The only thing that separates those that do and those that don't is that those who do. Do. How's that for a terribly written sentence that makes more sense that anything you have heard this week?
Some Thoughts- I should have been in a punk band when I was nineteen. It would be ridiculous for me to be in a punk band now, but I get it. That need to claim an identity that cannot exist in the status quo. Perhaps as adults, we need to understand that kids cannot simply be trained to be who we want them to be. The very nature of society is that it relies on it being fought against and push upon. I need to push upon something. I need DIY in a larger capacity. I need...I need.
More Thoughts- I am dying and I haven't done it yet. Anything. Written a book. Written a song. Sure there are these random thoughts. This blog. Twitter. Facebook. Me. You. But for what? Where is the work? The blood? The sweat? The tears?
Watching Sonic Highways made me realize that no matter what we dream, we have to do the work. We don't do the work to be famous. Or to change the world. But because doing the work is vital to our own sense of relevancy.
It seems, however, that people only do the work when they don't have a choice. It bubbles from somewhere beneath the rest of their lives. Have I given myself too many choices? Is life too easy to create? Or am I romanticizing the work and I am just being lazy?
Desperation is a great motivator, but what gets us going when we are not desperate? When we don't need to do the work? When TV shows, books, and Facebook and other distractions keep us just satisfied enough so we don't feel the need to create?
Can I at 40, in my comfortable bourgeois wonderland, focus enough to sit each night and wrestle with the work? Can I write enough admonishing posts like this one, to help kick start whatever comes next? Can I write in some kind of consistent manner? Do I have the discipline?
This is what you wanted. Right? To write more? Now shut the fuck up and write.
Messy, incoherent. Not the beautiful Kerouacian haiku-like blurbs you envisioned, whilst walking in the rain around the reservoir. Posts like this one are much sexier when they still only possible ideas gyrating in your brain as the clouds move low and fast driving on the highway, drowning out your kids screaming.
You see yourself in a more Bohemian atmosphere. There is wine and smoke and late nights. Cool hats and maybe a bow tie. I will produce more than I consume, you whisper tiny promises to yourself. Less watching and reading, and more writing and strumming and creating.
Not so pretty though is it? Languishing in the all this blank space. The thoughts stumbling into each other like kids at a middle school dance. Each half baked metaphor appearing more ridiculous than the next. These acts of creation, this writing, this producing takes time and effort and struggle and pain and well.....it ain't easy.
Woah, woah, woah.....where did this chastising voice come from and who the hell are you yelling at? Yes, it does take time and yes smearing yourself into the blank spaces takes time. And yes, no one said art in any capacity was meant to be easy, but if we never start, then we will never create.
Sometimes, some nights, most nights we need to loosen the muscles, oil the wheels, and click clack these keys, to let the words and chords and whatever else needs to get out...get out. There is no need for grand resolutions or public announcements. The only thing that separates those that do and those that don't is that those who do. Do. How's that for a terribly written sentence that makes more sense that anything you have heard this week?
Some Thoughts- I should have been in a punk band when I was nineteen. It would be ridiculous for me to be in a punk band now, but I get it. That need to claim an identity that cannot exist in the status quo. Perhaps as adults, we need to understand that kids cannot simply be trained to be who we want them to be. The very nature of society is that it relies on it being fought against and push upon. I need to push upon something. I need DIY in a larger capacity. I need...I need.
More Thoughts- I am dying and I haven't done it yet. Anything. Written a book. Written a song. Sure there are these random thoughts. This blog. Twitter. Facebook. Me. You. But for what? Where is the work? The blood? The sweat? The tears?
Watching Sonic Highways made me realize that no matter what we dream, we have to do the work. We don't do the work to be famous. Or to change the world. But because doing the work is vital to our own sense of relevancy.
It seems, however, that people only do the work when they don't have a choice. It bubbles from somewhere beneath the rest of their lives. Have I given myself too many choices? Is life too easy to create? Or am I romanticizing the work and I am just being lazy?
Desperation is a great motivator, but what gets us going when we are not desperate? When we don't need to do the work? When TV shows, books, and Facebook and other distractions keep us just satisfied enough so we don't feel the need to create?
Can I at 40, in my comfortable bourgeois wonderland, focus enough to sit each night and wrestle with the work? Can I write enough admonishing posts like this one, to help kick start whatever comes next? Can I write in some kind of consistent manner? Do I have the discipline?
This is what you wanted. Right? To write more? Now shut the fuck up and write.
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