Rabbit hole

6:15am my mind is going down a rabbit hole. I am thinking about creativity and work. Three thoughts. 1- I hold on to work because I believe that is the source of my material. 2- I hold on to work because I don’t believe I can earn money and support my family without structure and external pressure. 3- I write to relieve tension caused by work. If tension is gone will I write? If structure is gone will I go broke? If work is gone what will I write about? That is where I am. That is how I function. But I am frustrated. Because I work so much and only write as a reaction to feelings caused by work I am limited. *ABRUPT MINDSET CHANGE I create engaging and interactive content. I devote my energy to delighting people who interact with what I create.

Audience

5:49am the way I post and what I share differs greatly depending on the audience I imagine as I write. Sometimes I write for my future self. Other times I write for strangers. Sometimes The WIL. Lately I have been picturing my wife and daughter finding this blog now or after I die. I believe the posts are most real and honest when I selfishly do it just for me to go back and read. I recently found a handwritten journal I kept from when I was did a clinical pastoral rotation at St. Mark’s hospital in 1996. While I tried to be honest in the journal I failed to capture the scene of what I experienced. As I read the journal I kept wanting more information. I wanted to know more about who I talked with. What they were like. The words they said. I wanted deeper analysis of what I was thinking. I wanted to know my hopes, fears and emotions. Because of the experience if finding the journal and realizing what is missing I am a better writer. when I am cognizant of my desire for more information I write more engaging material.

Sunday morning

8:37am I only did one post yesterday. I was getting tired of the subject matter. I feel like all I can think about or write about is work. A couple thoughts were bouncing around in my head but I didn’t want to take the time to share them. Last week I transitioned the director of business operations over to sales. I am not back filling his position right away. That means I have to do many of the business office functions. I will either learn responsibility quickly or fail spectacularly

Why write

It is 11:38am. I am still on the apartment. I have had a weird headache all morning. I took some medicine but it hasn’t helped much. Thinking about writing. What do I write for? What do I hope to accomplish? I have all day to get something done. But I have tried in the past and nothing materialized. Add writing to the pile of things I want a new perspective on.

Poet

5:48am Friday. This morning on my walk I realized who I am. I am a poet. Not in a romantic sense. Or a professional. Or even good at the craft. Rather if I was left alone, if I had to fill my time, I would sit silently, think and write. That is my default setting. I always knew that. Yet it was difficult to declare. I thought in order to say that I needed to be talented. I needed adoration. I needed to earn money. Today on my walk I accepted I can be who I am.

Keeping a journal

6:03am this morning on the walk I was trying to remember what I did on certain weekends. I couldn’t recall my activity on certain days. I thought to myself “I need to start keeping a journal and writing things down.” I got twenty feet further when I realized how funny that is. I have been writing everything down for six months.

Friday night

10:03pm I get mad at myself when I write lot of posts in one day. I don’t get upset for writing down my thoughts. I appreciate the continuity when I go back and read them. I get mad because so many posts in one day makes it tedious when I transcribe them to a word document. I like to get through a certain number of days when I transfer the posts over for publication. If a day has many posts it takes longer to accomplish the task.

Why?

9:17am do I write these posts to share what normally would stay hidden in my mind? Do I write them for others to possibly discover? Do I want family, friends, the WIL to discover it? Maybe after I die? Do I write them so I can see where I have been, what I was thinking? I just write them.

Producing

I have stopped creating for the most part because I felt it didn’t go anywhere.

I am almost 49 and I feel my worth is diminished. In the last ten years I have bounced between 11 jobs. I have spent savings retirement and have debt.

My wife and I are separated. I no longer speak to the woman I love. Sex is a shallow dangerous encounters with strangers I treat as a party favor .

I don’t want to admit who I truly am or truly am not so I just retreat farther into my mind and the hollow shadows of meaningless existence

get pulled away

I am sitting here writing and I can see how I get pulled away. It is the squares. I come up with a good idea, I right it down and then I want to flit away and not keep pressing and moving forward. I want to just bask in the emotional high that I came up with something decent then spend the rest of the day building dreams in my head about how I am going to write a million dollar book and speak to enthralled audiences.