My god I don't want to write today. I did everything to avoid it...went for a walk, did a workout, baked a dutch baby, convinced my cat to sit with me, stared off...
So, I'm going to write about why I don't want to write.
I launched this challenge for myself to learn how to channel my creativity, to deepen my practice of serving up some of what I'm always cooking in my head. I really wanted to be blown away by what I offered. I thought I'd finally I have a context in which to synthesize what has seized me. But I haven't really been able to do that and I have a hunch about why.
Writing here everyday feels a little like giving an impassioned presentation to a crowd of expressionless faces. I don't mean to belittle the love and support I've received from some of my readers. Thank you! I appreciate you so much. And its just not enough.
It's like I've spent my whole life learning to tie the most immaculate and realistic flies, but I've never even caught a fish. The pain of putting myself into the world and not feeling the world tug back is immense and existential. It goes all the way back to infancy, when not being attuned to or mirrored is truly terrifying and has to be managed in some way. I think a lot of my creative life force is still locked away in that. But even if it weren't, all humans need a deep level of reciprocal sense-making to feel safe, or to feel real.
It has been a good while since I was in a regular context in which I received realtime feedback and attunement around what I was offering. I got this a lot when I worked at the herb shop, and some in graduate school before it went online for COVID. My cup has been emptying since then, and I am thirsty. God I'm thirsty. Sure, I get some feedback in my web design work, but I don't work that much (something I hope to change soon). I applied to go back to school again recently. Poured my heart into that application. But the process turned out to be all formality, with no one commenting on a single piece of content. I don't need to be applauded, or encouraged like a toddler. I just want dialogue, some level of grok.
So I'm not sure if I can learn to fully channel myself, or if that is even a good goal. What I want more is to be in a deep reciprocal relationship with the world. One where my gifts are received in an embodied way, where I can feel the world feeling me. Like maybe the thing to do is to join a writing group, where we are all sharing and hearing each other's work, so it has a place to land. Maybe it is not some personal shortcoming or weakness of will that has limited me, but my unmet human need for intimacy and attunement.
