I am finishing a book for The Operating System. Finishing as in 11 days away from the promised handover. This means that every time I am not writing I feel like I should be writing, which makes me not want to write so I don't and then we reread the sentence from the beginning and so forth.
Maybe though... there is a way to take what feels like procrastination, i.e. waiting for something to happen on the internet, and harness it into something productive like getting the word out about this very exciting new release on One More Revolution Records. And this points to a larger thing about distraction/procrastination/obligation: I don't know that the way through it is down the middle, with oppositional fury. It always brings me back to the kids and how they will do what engages them forever, seemingly, without needing to remind themselves, and then when they are done they are done. How do I live like that? What would it mean to know what I want to do in any given moment and have permission to go ahead and do it? What would I actually do? What would my life look like? And then there is that "if I could just" construction that I also always fall into. If I could just approach with the world with that sense of childlike wonder then I would finish my book, if I could just follow the thread, if I could just transform. Circling some kind of wisdom but still locked into old patterns. Around we go. But then I'll write a sentence or a paragraph or even a section and ALL WILL BE WELL again. This is the process, everyone says. I don't think it has to be this way, though. I think it can be a playground, which is how I have set up the basement. Stations. Metaphorical climbing walls and swings and seesaws and you get the point. And I took my forever oppressive list and turned it into a Venn diagram. Three circles: Make--Sustain--Document. So running the moving boxes to the porch felt like practice, not like distraction or an interference with my real work. Keeping the house sustains me. It's important. And maybe, then, so is this. And all the Facebook posts about the record label. Did I mention the label? And that something is coming? Comments are closed.
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