Hopefully advances in technology will get me to spend a little more time writing and less time wishing that I write. God, for close to ten years I’ve been in this kind of creative stasis, perpetually wishing I was creating instead of actually creating. Perhaps I’m more happy wishing, or maybe I’m afraid of further exposing myself as the mediocre talent I am. A fear of mediocrity, of being average, terrifies me. It has something to do with never feeling as if I deserved the opportunities this life has afforded me. So instead of seizing these opportunities and making good on the gifts given, I lament them as burdens? So it would seem.
But here I am. Writing about the one subject I am confident writing about: me. And on a new iPad no less, hoping that the change in method will somehow make it easy to access the supposed gifts I have locked inside this insecure mess of a husband, father and occasional creative artist.
This blog was supposed to be used more than it has been. Thus far, I’ve continued to disappoint on the projects front. But it’s a New Year, and what better time to resolve to do better, and be better, than at a time when the world at large is starting something new? If there is some kind of global consciousness, then is there a better time to start something new than during the first few days of a New Year? You can feel it as sure as you can an approaching rain after a week of dry days.
And yet the first line of an old poem I wrote flies at me, as it hasthe past several days.
Benched at the start of it.
That line seems to always stick with me. I think I need to write something better and more positive to replace its position at the back of everything creative that I start. Just having that phrase, my own words from the past, run across the field of my thoughts like a blinding streak of lighting is enough to give me pause whenever I set to task.
No. I can’t be afraid of failure, because benching myself is far worse than failing. Not even trying at life is the biggest failure that’s possible. Sadly I am well acquainted with this fact.
So let’s try. And damn the consequences. This is a start. Not of a blog, but of a new mindset.