Satya writes: I am a writer.
Getting my writing done is the most important thing in my day.
Getting my writing done is the most difficult thing in my day.
I sit down to write my novel. I distract myself on Twitter. I stare out of the window. I think about what a terrible writer I am and how much easier it would be if I gave the whole thing up. I try Facebook. I stroke the cats. I write a sentence or two. I go downstairs and make myself a cup of earl grey.
Creative projects are difficult, because we are working on the edge of what we know, and what-we-don’t-know is a terrifying abyss. They are difficult because they can take years of excruciating effort and they often don’t make us any money and there are no guarantees that we will come up with anything worth being-in-the-world. They are difficult because the world (and us, and the people we love) might feel uncomfortable or upset or annoyed about the things we need to say.
Creative projects are important, because they take us into new territory. Because they say the things that nobody else dares to say. Because they bring people joy and insight and comfort and help them release their sadness and anger and change them forever. They are important because they move us from the death of the known to the life of the new.
Being a person is a creative project we are all in the middle of. We are always remaking ourselves, reinventing ourselves. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been finding out about a limit I didn’t know I had, which I’m sure has coloured many of my interacts for most of my life. As I discover these new parts of myself, they shift and transmute. Hopefully, I can live a little more easily with them, and this makes things easier for other people too. I change.
We don’t like to not know who-we-are. We resist change like billy-o. The gap between knowing-who-we-were and knowing-who-we-are-now can be terrifying – existential chaos, a black hole, death. Often we cling with a great deal of desperation to the old.
It’s okay. We can trust ourselves, and the universe, as it unfolds. It might get hairy for a while, and it might get better and then really hairy again. And. If we listen out for support and know that we are held by a greater love, by something that is bigger than us, we will get through. It’s okay even when we don’t get through.
Keep writing. Keep remaking yourself. Keep leaping into the unknown. It’s important.
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Join us during August for some gentle leaping with our Mindful Moodle. If you register before this Sunday the 21st of July, it’ll be £39 / $59 instead of £59 / $99 for a Creative Boost, 31 daily inspirational emails and a private group. Spaces limited.
‘Serious squirrel’ by Navicore