Obstacle Course
"It's not going to stop til you wise up."
Aimee Mann
I'm thinking a lot about writing these days. Thinking about it. I'm not doing much of it, not actually sitting down and putting words on the page, not even planning or scheduling or making time for it. No, I'm just thinking about it and wondering why I'm not doing it and considering what must be wrong with me.
Of course, I know better. I've been writing long enough to know that the only way to get it done is to put myself in situations where I'm likely to do it. I have to not turn on the television and park myself in front of it when I get home in the evening. Or I have to actually get up in the morning when my alarm goes off and the morning quiet is ideal for settling into words. At the very least, I have to actually pick up a pen and sit down with some paper.
In other words, I have to prepare and clear a space to do it, that is if I really want to do it.
I even have experience with this. I've reached the point where I do that with my running, no matter what. When I've taken a couple of long weekend trips this summer, I've made sure I brought my shoes and running clothes and figured out where I could run. Yesterday evening, when errands meant I couldn't run at my regular time, I simply accepted it as a given that I'd have to run later, even though it meant getting home and having dinner later. I do what I need to do to run when it's time.
All of which makes me wonder what it is that keeps me from doing the other things I say I want to do. Right now, writing is chief among them, but this also includes eating in a healthier way. It's as though somewhere in the bowels of my being I have set for myself an obstacle course. Some part of me keeps insisting that I prove something, that I have to earn whatever fulfillment I want, some part of me that believes I don't deserve fulfillment.
So insteading of smoothing the path, instead of helping me prepare in a sane way, this demanding self mis-directs me; it offers me inducements to ignore the things that are really essential. I call this part of me demanding because it's the same voice that berates me for not writing more, for not eating better, for not taking time for silence.
These seemingly competing selves inside me puzzle me sometimes. I know that somewhere there's a place where they are joined, where they don't work at cross purposes. I want to get to that place. But I know I won't get there by thinking and wondering. I can only get there by taking the steps that make me feel whole: running, writing, devoting time to breathing and spiritual silence. I have to run the obstacle course, as I did this morning, and get to the empty page, get to the road, get to myself.
Aimee Mann
I'm thinking a lot about writing these days. Thinking about it. I'm not doing much of it, not actually sitting down and putting words on the page, not even planning or scheduling or making time for it. No, I'm just thinking about it and wondering why I'm not doing it and considering what must be wrong with me.
Of course, I know better. I've been writing long enough to know that the only way to get it done is to put myself in situations where I'm likely to do it. I have to not turn on the television and park myself in front of it when I get home in the evening. Or I have to actually get up in the morning when my alarm goes off and the morning quiet is ideal for settling into words. At the very least, I have to actually pick up a pen and sit down with some paper.
In other words, I have to prepare and clear a space to do it, that is if I really want to do it.
I even have experience with this. I've reached the point where I do that with my running, no matter what. When I've taken a couple of long weekend trips this summer, I've made sure I brought my shoes and running clothes and figured out where I could run. Yesterday evening, when errands meant I couldn't run at my regular time, I simply accepted it as a given that I'd have to run later, even though it meant getting home and having dinner later. I do what I need to do to run when it's time.
All of which makes me wonder what it is that keeps me from doing the other things I say I want to do. Right now, writing is chief among them, but this also includes eating in a healthier way. It's as though somewhere in the bowels of my being I have set for myself an obstacle course. Some part of me keeps insisting that I prove something, that I have to earn whatever fulfillment I want, some part of me that believes I don't deserve fulfillment.
So insteading of smoothing the path, instead of helping me prepare in a sane way, this demanding self mis-directs me; it offers me inducements to ignore the things that are really essential. I call this part of me demanding because it's the same voice that berates me for not writing more, for not eating better, for not taking time for silence.
These seemingly competing selves inside me puzzle me sometimes. I know that somewhere there's a place where they are joined, where they don't work at cross purposes. I want to get to that place. But I know I won't get there by thinking and wondering. I can only get there by taking the steps that make me feel whole: running, writing, devoting time to breathing and spiritual silence. I have to run the obstacle course, as I did this morning, and get to the empty page, get to the road, get to myself.
posted by A Pilgrim at 6:35 AM
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