Waking Up

I have so many things on my mind. So many things I want to write that I don't know where to start or how. Author James Clear suggests building an identity before trying to build a habit. Believing that "I am a writer" and then creating a habit to write is much easier than the other way around. Somehow on some level, I already feel like I am a creative person. I feel it is part of my identity to create things that bring to life all of my favorite most wonderful ideas. In my head, the biggest challenge for me was that of commitment. At first, I was afraid of earning a living from it. Now I see that almost anyone who does some work seems to get somewhere with it. The issue is that of commitment. It is difficult for me to commit to a certain type of work and then let it all go. 

I have been under influence for the past month it feels like. I tried my best to pay attention this time and not let it become a blurry haze. Although it feels like today I have awoken after a whole month and I feel like myself nonetheless. The ideas don't leave me. I want to write them down. Story ideas, philosophical wrestling, pursuing clarity, character ideas, settings, dialogues, lore, tone, etc. Beneath it all, a deep need to make sense of the whole thing, a pent-up cry to avoid making any more serious mistakes, and gain some useful revelation that will allow me to achieve it.

I am a writer because I write. Seems simple enough. Just do the thing for long enough, keep your head down, and after a while, it'll all work out. Why the struggle then? What is it that I struggle with in the first place? I couldn't shake the feeling that I was not engaging in the actual process that would give me the results and instead just keeping myself busy. It felt like a precarious position to be in, too busy to even see it that way. Like rushing to a red light. Yet I knew I had to keep taking steps and move in those directions. Today I feel like I have run laps around my problems, gained some perspective on whatever was happening and trust myself enough to figure out my own way through it organically.

What does this mean ultimately? It means that I am good. It means that I am going to do my best with all the ideas that I have and forget about the things that don't speak to me the same way. It means that I will slowly but surely start to put it all on paper and start working on it, letting it teach me, and I will allow it to take its own shape and form. I have gained a deep sense of companionship over the last month with our creative crafts and the people engaged with them. I have doubted myself and kept the faith, I've lost people and found love, I have stopped worrying and started living, and above all else, I have really let myself go. 

What has it all amounted to? Now is the time to take my learning down onto a different blank space. It is the time to begin anew and to start doing due diligence to the calls of my soul. While I am clearly starting from more experience this time, possibly from a worse physical condition, I feel a certain sense of newness in it. There is a premonition of a certain idea that has changed my perspective somehow, the things that have happened to me have given me something more than just a restful break, motivation, and inspiration. Something within me has grown to be more resilient, and dare I say, anti-fragile.

Is this an illusion caused by the calm before the storm? Nothing more than the chemical equilibrium of a junkie's brain coming right off the latest high? Well everything is an illusion, isn't it? The question is what has bought this particular one to come about, and how can it be perpetuated in the future? I believe there is something I can learn from all this, and that thing will help me go further than I ever have before.