Someone said to me yesterday "Hey I heard you're a writer." I laughed because he followed it up with this bit about how I should write a sitcom and I thought ~ Yea, I don't really want to. I smiled and was polite - for me - then he explained how it was better with a visual expression of the things he thought I want to write about. I thought ~ What the fuck is the point then?!!! Will good sitcoms suddenly be more meaningful than Shakespeare?, what I said was nothing I smiled politely and moved on with my day. I came back to that conversation before writing this and thinking about how I haven't written on here lately because I'm doing other stuff, living other lives. I haven't stopped writing though. I write more regularly than I have in a very long time. It's a whole different writing experience to take your adventures and the characters you've met and try to find a balance between the actual factual people and the exaggerated hilarity, humanity and humility of their stories colliding. I make that shit sound either fancy as fuck or downright pretentious. The real of it is though I have no clue what i'm doing, no idea if what I'm doing is worth anyone reading or worth trying to do. It could quite possibly all be utter nonsense. I could fail. I fuckin hate failing. I loathe the feeling of failing at anything, even things I don't particularly give a shit about. That said imagine how bad I'm going to feel if I never reach the goals I have regarding my writing.
Now, replace my writing with anything in the world. Any dream or hope you may have ventured to have any person you thought you would be when you were a kid. Think about it, simmer on it, are you doing it? Are you living the life you wanted? Are you the person you wanted to be? Are you miserable or happy? What do you want for yourself? Who the fuck are you? Are you movin and perhaps more importantly are you groovin?
Suddenly the fact that I keep writing down fractals of ideas and beginning stories without finishing others as I go, doesn't seem so bad, because, well, what the fuck else am I working for if not to be a better human, a better me and so, a better writer. What is life, if not to some extent, a lesson in learning when to walk away and knowing if and when to go back. Bam! Instant inspiration. I want to be the type of person who is always writing something. I hope eventually something I write makes a difference somehow to someone else but also I want to be able to take care of myself. By which I mean get money. I want to write about Fuckin Bitches and Get Money for it so the way I see it I will...as soon as I stop being afraid and just do the shit.
I have been in this intense growth spurt of awareness to who I am and mostly I think I am becoming a pretty fuckin awesome human being but I know my deepest failures and I know I can be a far better one. I think all too often we allow it to be all too easy. We say, Fuck it. this is where I am so this is who I am. We allow our fears to swallow our hopes and dreams and aspirations of being who we wanted to be before we became who we are. I could have been a million far shittier versions of myself if I had just accepted who I was at any of my past moments of doubt. I've slowly learned to give myself a healthier insulation of people who are both supportive and understanding of who I am. People who respect where I've been and can see where I'm going, who get me and love me even if they don't really know me. I relapse on that from time to time but more so lately I feel like I'm getting the hang of this living thing. I'm progressively happier as I recognize and address my flaws and failures. I am living to be someone I respect. It feels pretty good mostly.
We shouldn't be afraid of failures, of messes and mistakes. I don't want to be. That's not to say I'm not, but, the heart of it is, we shouldn't be afraid. If we are going to be, then we should pick better things to be afraid of. I am afraid of failure, it scares me more than anything in the world, but I am also afraid of not living the big beautiful adventure filled life I have been planning since I could think of cool shit to be when I grew up. I'm afraid all of the people I love not knowing how much I appreciate them even if I can't surround myself with them or immerse myself in their lives. I am afraid of missing really good sunsets and lives lost way too soon. I'm afraid of a world where no one is who they want to be and I'm afraid of dinosaurs making a comeback due to grossly negligent scientists...among other things.
You see? There's way better things to be afraid of than being a shitty writer and even those aren't worth the cost. Yes, there is a cost, there are casualties of fear, hope, dreams, adventures, love. All things that get lost when you choose to be afraid rather than keep it movin and groovin. More than that I dare say we ourselves get lost when we let fear tell us who we can or cannot be. When I die I want some one to get up and say "That bitch lived. She was one fun, fearless, fucking bitch of a cunt." I want to be remembered someday for doing the shit I said I would and even if I failed, at least I'll have done it. Not tried. Actually, done it. That. That's the shit right there. That is what living is to me among countless other equally important things. Life is an adventure and the way I imagine it adventurers need fear only to keep them moving. I'm an aspiring adventurer, writer, human. I never want to stop collecting characters and stories and moments. I want many things for my life but mostly I want to keep movin and grovin until I can't anymore.
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