Frigid

I’ve had writer’s block since before I even started this blog. The common phenomenon feels to me like being stuck inside a block of ice. Seeing what’s around, knowing there is a way through, but being unable to access that way and not knowing why. Maybe not even knowing your frozen.

I’m gonna call it creative frigidity (literary frigidity sounds better but I’m not writing literature): suppression of the free flowing energies of receptivity and creativity. It comes with sometimes insurmountable anxiety induced paralysis and is reminiscent (maybe it’s the same damn thing!) of stuck sexual energy that ha no outlet for expression.

It’s kinda strange to start a blog when you’re not even actively engaging in a writing practice you’d choose to make semi-public, but it’s not really out of character. I’ve never not considered myself a writer – it’s like, part of who I am. Part of my identity. I’m one who writes. A lot.

I’m one who writes a lot and wants to write more to share, for lots of selfish purposes, really. I want writing to be a ginormous part of how I live my life and make my life – I kinda want to be able to make money doing it. Which seems utterly ridiculous as I write it because I haven’t chosen yet to be even remotely disciplined enough to be a part time writer.

Because it scares me

And I’m kinda wondering

• where I ever got the notion that being a writer was a good idea for me
• why do i hold on so tightly to the belief that one day I’ll have a deliberate active creative writing lifestyle
• why the hell do I actually want it

Damn I’m going through a growth spurt with writing. Let me feel around between these selfish reasons that drive my desire to write and see if maybe I can fish out the reasons why I’m too scared to actually write.

I have always loved writing assignments. I usually did pretty well in English and all the other languages I studied. There was some poetic foolery going on too, from a super young age, and I think the poem I wrote about names when at 9 was pretty sweet. By 14 all of my poems reflected a disturbing desperate-ness for love and attention. Writing under supervision was extremely rewarding most of the time because it provides a space for observable improvement and positive reinforcement.

Correspondence is one form of writing at which I show up as my absolute best writer self. Whenever I send a mass email about my adventures, successes, upcoming plans, or ideas, it is very well received. When I make a vulnerable expression of some triumph or sadness on Instagram, people thank me and ask questions and really feel understood, which in turn makes me feel [terrified] like I’m doing something right, and I usually live in a very masked fear that I’m doing something wrong.

From every corner of my life, people tell me to write a book. And I want to. But I don’t. I don’t follow through with newsletters, blogs, or facebook pages. Every time someone tells me I should write a book, half of me is thrilled at the feeling that another human has recognized me for who I really am deep down at my core, way beyond the identity. Because some part of my life has clearly resonated with their own. That’s what it means to me. But it’s also fucking scary as shit because I have so much doubt that I immediately fill up with the dread of disappointing them by not writing it and as soon as that thought enters my mind so does the spiral of self sabotage that makes the thought reality.

At this ripe age of 35, I know that if I ever do write a book, at least 100 people would read it. I mean 100 isn’t enough to get famous over, but that’s how many people I know who I am certain would support me. If you think about it in those terms, 100 is a fuck-load of people to know I can count on. Why doesn’t this motivate me, encourage me, lift me up when I feel hopeless? Is it because I am also scared of disappointing them all?

I can probably let that go now, huh?

Yes.

This incredibly wild, sometimes turbulent, mostly beautiful life of mine has taught me some things. I know a few things about a lot of things spanning the spectrum of things to know about. When it comes to feeling things, I know tragedy, delight, awe, terror, beauty, adventure, survival, ecstasy, healing. When it comes to learning things, I know geography, Japanese, political science, business, medicine, html, ceramics. When it comes to doing things I know backpacking, dancing, listening, praying, wilderness rescue, writing, jewelry, medicine making.

My thoughts are deep and interconnected, and I thank the Fungi kingdom for it’s revelation of unity 11 years ago.

I believe that it’s quite possible, based on people’s reactions to me and my output, that there is some kind of medicine in my writing for someone out there. To align with another’s journey in that way seems an almost sacred gift to exchange, and I want to get in on that. Spiritual purpose. Like maybe a part what I came to Earth for.

If it is a path of potential healing then is it necessary to fear it? Is it necessary to describe any of this as selfish?

No.

Referring to one’s deepest most heartfelt desires as selfish is unfortunately common in our society, as is accusing any person who lives outside the norm of running away. I really feel the most alive when I’m on the road, in a plane, on the sea, on a trail. And you know what else? I want to see as much of this Earth as I possibly can before I head into the next dimension cuz I don’t know when I’ll visit this planet again. There is stuff out there that I won’t even be able to imagine until I see it for the first time. Sometimes I go out and see the newness, and my heart opens up and I feel God in and around me and I’m making love with the whole world and some injured part of my soul gets restored.

This is the shit I really live for. The moments that tear me down to build me up and having me sobbing hot wet tears for hours because something is so beautiful or touching. I want to write about that stuff. I’m not gonna lie – I want to do what I want and feel what I feel and live what I live and that be my job, and part of my job is to write about it.

I don’t know if this makes me a wanna be journalist? Autobiographer? Commentator? Religious teacher? I have no idea. I just know that if I can narrow down my fears and shoot them dead, I can take my writing on the road/plane/train/bike/backpack and somehow, there must be a way, to make money on it and maintain my joy in it as well as authenticity.

Writing is one of my crafts. It’s the one I can use to share the others, I think.

I think in this I little exercise I answered where I ever got the notion that being a writer was a good idea for me and why the hell do I actually want it.

I get it now. Writing feels good. It is rewarding to have a positive effect on others and to express my creative energies in a way that re-establishes my connection to the great source of all that is. If I distill all of this down, writing is rewarding. I need rewards. Lots of them. That I earn from being nothing more than who I am and doing no more than what I do. It’s gonna take some unlearning to let go of the shame I repeatedly apply to myself around getting what I want and being happy. Which leads me to my next tackle:

• why don’t I do it now, if it’s all those good things mentioned up above?