Week 9

I’ve been thinking about dreams a lot, in the sense that some of us harbor a secret (or not-so-secret) dream that we’re working on.

I know that I’m a writer because when I don’t write, I feel like a wild animal backed into a corner— so trapped that if I can’t manage to escape and find some solitude to write, I become so anxious and suffocated and feel I could start chewing off my own arm. Writing (and making) is not only the great love of my life, but the only remedy (for me) when depression creeps in, despair about the state of the world takes over, or panic about the future washes over me. As many a writer will say, I write because I have to.

I can imagine that life might be easier— or at least in some ways simpler— if I was not a writer. I can imagine a reality where my dream is different, and sensible, and more easily achievable. But maybe then it wouldn’t be a dream. This dream makes me feel like my state of consciousness continuously starts to float above the earth’s surface, bringing me to a place of flow and just being, only to be yanked down by the tether of reality. I often think it’s the tether of reality that drives me crazy, but without the ethereal imagination of “what could be,” I would already be anchored to the earth and grounded in “what is.” Maybe the attachment to the dream is what leads to suffering.

I still couldn’t imagine living without it, which would feel like succumbing fully to the doldrums of daily life’s mundane tasks and the constant despair of life’s cruelties and disappointments.

I assumed as a kid, and until embarrassingly (very) recently, that everyone has a dream. It seems that some people don’t, at least not one they will admit out loud (or even to themselves?). It seems that many are vaguely dissatisfied with their lives, but, if questioned, would still choose their current path, if nothing else as a default. For them, maybe there is no path above the path, no dreaming with their heads above the status quo. I can’t imagine a life like that, though I imagine it would be nice to be free of the constant tugging and relentless desire to be off doing something different.

I have often felt paralyzed by awe and desire to be a writer, and to find enough success to justify writing every day. But I don’t need to justify it through its ability (or inability) to make me money. I do it because I love it, and because I have to, and that’s enough. I will keep doing it because I love it, and because I have to, regardless of the outcome. I will write and write and write and revise and revise and edit in my desire to get better, but I will not stay in paralyzing fear of failure before sending my writing out in the world.

One of the great magics I’ve noticed in my life, and have heard others experience as well, is that the exact book I need to read seems to come to me at the exact moment I need to read it. The book that came to me is Haruki Murakami’s Novelist As a Vocation. I had picked it up and brought it home a couple months ago. Then it started calling me from the bookshelf. Then I heard a podcast that referenced it. So I grabbed it off the shelf and knew it was time. The chapter I just read feels like it was written after eavesdropping in my mind. Murakami compares writing to running, like many writers do, and he happens to do both as a marathoner. He is able to be so prolific precisely because when he chooses to work on a project, he completely focuses on that project and ignores everything else. I admire, envy and crave that simplicity, dedication, and most of all focus.

This brings me to my major failure for the week, and the only one I have the time to really count or write about:

failure to focus

The good news is that I enjoy writing, and that I am never stuck for ideas. I seem to instantly have a gut feeling for the form that would be most fitting for each idea I have (this would be perfect for a children’s book, a screenplay, a poem, a novel, a short story, a short film, an animated short film), and, unfortunately, I want to do it all. The bad news, as you can imagine, is that my Achilles heel is focusing on one project at a time. This leads me feeling like a kid (or my dogs), with way too many toys, all out all at once and scattered over the floor, each one difficult to truly engage with over the temptation of all the others. It leaves me with an attic of half-finished projects calling out to me like ghosts, never leaving me alone or letting me focus on just one thing.

This week, in surrendering to the paralysis of choices, new medical diagnoses, and work just being extra, I can mostly only say that I failed at getting rid of the unnecessary and honing my focus. I feel like I am stuck on the spinning teacup ride at Disney, yelling that I want to get off the ride to no avail.

I know that if I want to have the kind of success I dream of having, I need to simplify and to focus. One project at a time. I may or may not become a marathon writer like Haruki Murakami, but right now, I can write in a series of sprints, and set short-term goals to finish a project within a timeframe. The goal of the week ahead is to choose which project I am focusing on, determining its duration, and working on simplifying my life to set myself up for the kind of hypnotizing focus and steady consistency I need to finally finish something.

Thank you for all your support, and happy failing.

Rachel