“”I’m scared!”

“Scared of what?” he asked, almost sounding human and caring.

“I’m scared that this is my one and only dream and that if I start and I fail I will have nothing left. Nothing left. Nothing left.””

– Bradley Charboneau, Every Single Day

__________

“Oh, I’m done hidin’, now I’m shining
Like I’m born to be
Oh, our time, no fears, no lies
That’s who we’re born to be”

– Huntr/x, Golden

__________

I’ve always felt like a person with no purpose.

I find it hard to plan and to focus.

Every day feels like a new start, little carried over from previous days.

Unlike Sisyphus there is no mountain for the boulder to roll down.

It remains inert on a dusty plain – a road to nowhere.

No momentum.

No plan.

No direction.

No ambition.

But plenty of fear.

Perhaps I’m meant to hang in there, keep rolling, the horizon revealing where I’ve always wanted to be.

Maybe I need to put the work in to reveal the destination

Might as well keep going then.

What else should I do, abandon hope?

Then I’ll never discover anything.

At least I am not alone on my journey.

I have these writers unknowingly cheering me from the sidelines with their words of wisdom.

I’m feeling emboldened – amazing what a little writing can do.

“Every time you confront something painful, you are at a potentially important juncture in your life—you have the opportunity to choose healthy and painful truth or unhealthy but comfortable delusion.”

– Ray Dalio, Principles: Life and Work

__________

“It was the monotony and sterility of the other outlets which drove me to desperation. I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: the world of art is the only such realm. I entered it without any apparent talent, a thorough novice, incapable, awkward, tongue-tied, almost paralyzed by fear and apprehensiveness. I had to lay one brick on another, set millions of words to paper before writing one real, authentic word dragged up from my own guts… I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink.”

– Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart

__________

I get up and write.

I join that community of strangers heeding the call.

We who have been hypnotized by the same unnameful force that caused us to turn away from the world and cast our gaze downward onto the page, inward upon ourselves.

I imagine that I pull out my guts onto the page, in a practice of visceral honesty. In fact, they are merely the brightly coloured handkerchiefs of the amateur magician.

It’s a trick, an illusion, mere self-entertainment, soon to be forgotten when the next demand of real life comes by.

The page is my mirror in front of which I practice and perfect my simple tricks.

I’m not going to fool anyone except, perhaps, myself.

I keep at it though.

What’s next? There’s only so much an amateur can do on his own.

What is a magic trick without an audience? Only they can tell if it has been successful or not.

Are these words, intended to create a happy illusion for others, simply an exercise in self delusion?

What compels me?

Can I be truly honest with myself and say that I stare not into the mirror, but through it at an imaginary audience?

Do I dream of that stage whilst scribbling in the dark?

Am I laying a true foundation for something real?

Do I even know what success or failure looks like?

Isn’t the act of creation enough without embellishing it with expectations and definitions?

Only time will tell.

“Like a very talented pianist once told me when I was a boy, it’s better to practice a musical instrument for five minutes a day than to practice for two hours once a week. It’s something I never forgot.”

– Hugh MacLeod, Evil Plans

__________

“But you must do. Modifying your own behavior is the most effective and rewarding way to minimize the gap. Simply thinking will not move the needle. In fact, the more you think without doing, the longer the list of things that “need” to be done becomes and the wider the gap gets. The wider the gap, the more stress, anxiety and risk of paralysis. The only way to close the gap is to act!”

– Nic Peterson, Bumpers

__________

I enjoy my daily writing practice.

A little writing time. A modest daily commitment to hit publish.

Doing something small now is so much better than the big pressure of a mega session later.

I cannot imagine sitting down on a weekend and saying, “right, got to write seven blog posts today.”

No way. I would be too overwhelmed.

But I chip away daily.

I’m not looking for perfection, but for the happy medium between reflection and completion.

Hitting publish wraps up my current thought.

I feel better.

I give myself a hit of what I crave- a dose of daily medication administered from within.

My inexhaustible supply of good feeling.

“The word unfolds in time, like a procession of ants, and each one brings something new and unexpected; he who expresses himself in words is born anew each second; scarcely has one sentence been completed than the next one supplements it, completes it, and behold in the movement of words the endless play of my existence expresses itself – when I express myself in words, I am like a tree in the wind, rustling, quivering.”

– Witold Gombrowicz, Diary Volume 2

__________

“I think ideas are as real as trees.”

– Jim Harrison, Conversations with Jim Harrison

__________

A tree grows slowly.

During its life there is a yearly cycle of change.

Leaves abound then fall.

The glory of spring and summer turn to autumn’s letting go. Then the bare existence of winter.

A tree is never static.

It’s cycles are a kind of self-grooming: it prevents overgrowth.

I need to accept that there are constant thoughts and ideas swirling in my head.

If I do not write them down, then they remain within, snarled and entangled.

In writing, they become real. I can sort, file, keep, or discard them.

Writing is a practice of constant renewal.

The real skill is in the management of the mind forest.

Sure, wildness is fantastic. But what I need to do is create a habitat in which I can thrive.

“Eliminate everything that is not light!”

– Plotinus, quoted in, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision by Pierre Hadot

__________

“I continually use my experience of being present during a child’s first steps as an example of positive feedback… When the adults realised what was happening, they all sat in a circle. The young performer teetered and wobbled from the outstretched arms of one adult to another Ooo’s, ahs, smiles, cheers and hand claps all around the circle. There was a huge, beaming smile on the child’s face. Not a single adult thought of saying, ‘That was lovely (insert your own name), now if you could just hold your back a little straighter and lift your knees higher, you will walk even better the next time’. Why not? The child certainly was not walking well. Yet we, the adults, knew that the child would continue to develop the skills of walking, running, skipping, hopping and other forms of exciting locomotion. It is important that student improvisers return to this atmosphere of playful exploration they had as young children, the time in life when our impulsive behaviour is at its peak.”

– Al Wunder, The Wonder of Improvisation

__________

A mantra: Keep the feedback positive.

Most important is what I direct toward myself.

Notice what I am doing well.

Improvements will be made through practice.

I do not need to bombard myself with negativity.

Look for the light. Head toward it!

Keep reading.

Keep writing.

Create space for reflection.

Whatever it is I am doing here, it is positive.

Because I am doing.

These baby steps are faltering, but they will continue.

I will only grow stronger through practice.

I pick myself off of the floor.

I fix my sights on the horizon.

I keep moving.

“The more I consult my feelings during the day, tune in to myself to see if what I am doing is what I want to be doing, the less I feel at the end of the day that I have been wasting time.”

– Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

__________

“The body doesn’t think. It knows exactly what it needs to know. My imagination is much more interesting than my life. Even when uninvited, it remains in the corner creating its own world.”

– Ruth Zaporah, Improvisation on the Edge

__________

I am back, to precisely no fanfare.

I am writing here again. A fresh tree has been felled. I heard, but it matters not that no one else will.

I want to write, which is the exact opposite of wasting time.

My curiosity is scratched by my reading. I report on how my mind heals the wounds with new sentences of my own.

It doesn’t have to be grand.

My life and imagination cannot be summarised in one blog post.

Instead, like everything else worth doing, it’s all in the steps.

I like today’s footprint. But already I am listening to hear where tomorrow’s footfall will take me.

“Another form of luxury is to be unavailable. To turn your back on the daily din is a privilege. Letting others take over tasks in your absence. The decision not to reply to text messages or pick up when the phone rings. Expectations from colleagues, business connections and family that are not that important to you are handed over to someone else, or ignored altogether. You have fought your way into a position where you couldn’t care less if someone wants to contact you.”

– Erling Kagge, Silence

__________

“Steal Time, Every Day”

– Hugh MacLeod, Evil Plans

__________

I wish I could disconnect from the grid of other’s demands.

There is a great body of literature to feed our flights of fantasy and provide imagined adventure.

Many others have trekked, traveled and challenged themselves up, down, and around the world.

But once our eyes refocus on the life in front of us it can be disheartening and overwhelming to plan our own grand adventure.

But there are options.

Small acts of defiance and independence.

A five minute daydream.

A short walk along a new route.

A workout.

A blog post.

Whatever it is that we can snatch time for can become a small daily adventure.

Perhaps these can build up momentum and become something bigger.

I have been a modest adventurer, taking a small step in the right direction.

I have taken this time to write as a detachment from the trivial.

“Don’t you think it’s pretty, all these trees, these hawthorns! And my pond – which you’ve never congratulated me on! You’re looking as sad as an old dishcloth. Feel that little breeze? Oh, say what you like, life has something to offer despite everything, my dear Amédée!”

– Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

__________

“Still, a great deal of light falls on everything.”

– Vincent Van Gogh, quoted in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

__________

There is always something to notice.

A glimpse of life that can lift the spirits.

There really is, even if at times the world can feel mighty small and bare.

It can happen in nature, on the page, anywhere we care to look.

But to notice something wonderful we must take the step outside, pick up the book, have faith that there is always so much more to see, experience and absorb.

I’m going to pick up a book, relax, and wait to catch sight of something new.

“I’m nothing special,
I’m nothing special.
You always tell me that I’m,
Nothing special.”

– Symposium, Nothing Special

__________

“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.”

Eric Hoffer, Working and Thinking on the Waterfront

__________

I’m not special.

I’m totally fine with that.

It feels great to not feel special.

Totally ordinary

Low expectations and high freedom.

Keep the ego of righteousness at bay.

Keep an open mind.

No one owes me anything.

Ask for little.

And make the most of what I have.

“We watch a reader in a bookshop: he picks up a book, leafs through it—and for a short instant he is entirely cut off from the world. He is listening to someone speaking, whom others cannot hear. He gathers random fragments of phrases. He shuts the book, looks at the cover. Then he often takes a brief glance at the cover flap, hoping for some assistance. At that moment, without realizing it, he is opening an envelope: those few lines, external to the text of the book, are like a letter written to a stranger.”

– Roberto Calasso, The Art of the Publisher

__________

“‘Where were you just then?’ said Pete, throwing his lighthouse-beam in my direction. The blueness of his eyes and his sudden frank attention still made me jump. He would have made a brilliant hypnotist. ‘Lost in a book?’ I thought, I get lost in real life. Books are where I find myself.”

– Christopher Fowler, Word Monkey

__________

A book is the start of something.

It can be a brief fling or develop into a long term relationship.

There are many ways in which we are introduced to books.

By a friend.

Online.

A chance meeting in a shop.

Or my favourite – from another book.

However I am introduced, a book becomes an integral part of my life during the reading stage of the relationship.

I look forward to the moment I can pick up the book again and continue the conversation.

There is often a small tinge of loss when I finish the book.

Many books linger in my mind for days, weeks, months and years after.

I visit books to be with myself.

In fact this blog is created as an outlet for all the happy memories enjoyed in the company of books.

Here is my collection of snapshots.

It might inspire you to visit some of the places I have loved.