almost a manifesto

Let me see if I can crystallize this…[1]

The path is not a competition, with others or self. It’s just a fucking path. Walk it or don’t, but don’t think there’s any kind of winning involved.

Accomplishment should be intensely personal. Those who will know about it by proximity are really the only ones that need to know.

If one listens to sycophants, one must give equal time to critics. Best, if possible, to ignore both (except for required civility).

If it’s hard and level and predictable, it’s not the path; it's a sidewalk. Turn left (metaphorically speaking) now.

Figure out what you’d bleed for and you’re on the way to figuring out your path. Besides, if you bleed, it’s a sport, and everything sporty is more fun.

Scars are tattoos that you earn.[2]

We do not fall so that we can learn how to get up. We fall because we trip, or drink too much, or get hit on the head. If you can learn to get up from falling, good on ya, but that’s not why you fell. Shit just happens sometimes.

Everything’s eventual, so don’t panic. A mountain in the way just means you have to switch to climbing shoes. Think of it as a great thing, like an unbirthday present.

The shortest distance between two points is fucking boring anyway.[3]

Climbing teaches us that falling doesn’t hurt. It’s the landing that does that. You’ll either survive the landing and get to quote Nietzsche for the rest of your life in an intensely personal way, or you won’t survive and, subsequently, won’t give a damn.

The journey means that mile markers are quaint novelties, not something to dance about. Mile markers just say “I’ve come this far”, but the truth is that they also mean there’s farther to go. The only one worth dancing about is the one that says “The End”.

There isn’t a mile marker that says “The End”. Not one we get to see anyway.

If you need a reason to dance, dance about the love you’ve given and received. It’s the best motivation anyway.

One of the best things about the no winning and no ending concepts is that you never lose and you always have more time to learn and grow. And that’s all that matters.[4]

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[1] Just for me, of course. I’m not referencing anything specifically except the bumper sticker, but chances are I’m plagiarizing something because, frankly, it’s all been said. So I claim nothing as original here, at all. Read at your own risk.

[2] My favorite bumper sticker. Ever. Even more than the one on my laptop: Kill your television

[3] Very sure I read this somewhere. Just can’t remember for the life of me where.

[4] Just, of course, my opinion. What the fuck do I know… J

the one thing

Prologue:
When I was a kid I wanted to write. I made up stories all the time. Storytelling was my best friend, literally. And then circumstances distracted me. Like life, and adolescence. I was a kid - shit happens. I got a second chance in my late twenties and realized that I still wanted to write. Sadly, I was complicit in my own betrayal and spent another ten years floundering around. A year and a half ago I got a third chance, saw an opening and jumped, sans parachute and without really looking. I’m not sure how this story ends, but the freefall is proving exhilarating. Most days.

Today I woke up and felt pretty fucking depressed. I didn’t want to work on the manuscript. I didn’t want to read news. I felt like I owed a blog post and couldn’t get in any kind of space to write it. There wasn’t even a topic. I toyed with my sense of ambivalence like a basketball, spinning it around and looking for a seam that I could pull open and pick at, but that felt about as close to masturbatory as I am inclined to discuss in this blog.

And then I realized what it was: After five days away, I missed my novel.

Profoundly.

I missed it the way grass misses the spring, the way fish miss water. I missed my tortured characters. I missed their internal and external quandaries, their little moments of joy, hope and triumph. I missed the wide, wild, weeping landscape of the world I’ve created for them. I was homesick.

When I started the life-inversion and took the jump, the goal was to mold a creative life; something with a focus that allowed me to feel expansive. I wanted a one thing. You know, like in City Slickers. The novel has become, joyfully, the center of my own personal little internal solar system, both the thought of it and the creeping, oozing reality of it as it takes shape. It is my one thing, and neglecting it is a bit like not eating or sleeping.

Not good. You'd think I'd have figured this out before now. My obtuseness knows no bounds. (S’okay, there’s a happy ending.)

Here’s my point: I think the purpose of life is to find a purpose, a one thing, and give your self to it, without concern for destinations or accomplishments or milestones. The purpose of life is to know your passion and breathe into it with every breath, especially the last one. The purpose of life is to find a reason, the reason for you, and chase it like a junkyard dog until you get hit by a car and die. Just the purpose and the journey. The one thing.

For me, life works that way. I think.

Dénouement:
My one thing and I were happily reunited this morning. Don’t look! It’s not polite.

Epilogue:
This suggests a question, and I’d love to hear from you on this. Do you have a one thing? If so, what is it? If not, do you think you want one?