Still: Pointless

Or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

I tried to be still and zen out while taking a shower. While I managed to zone out enough to shampoo up my non-existent hair...



... other than that it served only to grow a pebble idea into one the size of a baseball, but I feel incapable of playing with it. Like the kid with a broken leg who gets a bike for a birthday. I'm not good enough for my own ideas.

When that idea, nurtured by the heat and the water, reached that perfect 150 word size, I kept repeating the key facts to myself until I was able to write them down. Writing them down, however, necessitated that I was out of my sweat lodge and back in the warmly cluttered den. At my laptop, which has its own clutter.

I tried being still again once I had cleared thoughts of clones and hyperdrives out of my head, but a cascade of things I could be doing (neglected to do today, even) poured through my head. There are so many ways I could be moving forward. I could tidy up the clutter (or do the greater cleaning task of sorting all clothes in the room and refolding them). I could read things and make notes about them. I could draw. God forbid, I could even open up negotiations with one of those good ideas I'm afraid I can't do justice to.

Fear is actually one of the themes I was considering going into my think-tank. I think Carol was the one who brought it into our conversation today, asking if I was afraid of finishing things. "Very, very likely" was my reply.

What I'm actually afraid of, I think, is that finishing things will not change anything. I'm afraid that my work won't actually matter to anyone else. I'm afraid that when I'm done with it, nobody else will want to take over the care and keeping of my baby. I'm afraid that I am the end of the line in the life of my creation.

I am fairly certain that these things are true. How difficult it is to put words to the complex emotions and understandings of a human being!

This isn't a personal self-esteem matter, it's closer to "am I creating a bird without wings?". If a project can't fly when I push it out of the nest, into the world beyond my influence, it doesn't get a second chance. I do. A lost or failed idea is not the end of it all for me, my brain is still fertile and active and curious. But the idea, once so full of promise, is a cold broken heap at the foot of the tree.

Am I being silly? Do I need to get over it and realize that failed projects aren't dead animals, and can be picked up and rejuvenated? Although once something has a life of its own (as many creative endeavors do), isn't it at risk of losing that life?

I feel better about all this. Maybe I haven't evolved my wisdom, but putting feelings in the mold of a metaphor helps me understand a little more.

I still want a mentor, though.



Until then, I'll try being still again.