Who was it that said that a writer should write every day, read every day, read and write until one can't live without it? I wonder so much about so many things. I wonder how such a state is attained - and yet I don't. My immediate thought is purely hard work. We have free will. We control ourselves, every minute of every day that we aren't asleep or in an otherwise altered state of consciousness. The problem is living trapped in loops of mediocrity, through which we slide into quiet, desperate existences. Such a thing is dangerous. To forget - el olvido - is a very dangerous thing.
"I'm writing," Sean Connery's character says in the movie *Finding Forrester*. "Like you'll be, when you start punching those keys." It sounds ridiculous - of course it is easy to write like I am writing right now, writing about my writing, or rather, about my writer's block; and about my life, or perhaps more my *life's* block, if there is such a thing. One page. Just one page, that's all this place asks of me every day. How long can a person just sit in front of this desk - metallic black yet made of wood - writing about nothing, day after day after day? I wonder I wonder I wonder. I wonder how to shock myself into realizing how different each day can become, every day. I don't know how to keep myself aware of the potential and of the Spirit of God every hour of every day. It sounds impossible, yet I know people have done it... Or have they? Maybe they haven't, maybe it's just that they're doing the best they can, and the times they *do* get it right are the ones that shine brightest and count the highest, instead of keeping themselves in some sort of super-prolific "Zen" state at all times.
Reminds me of how I sued to say I wished I was a Terminator, so I wouldn't have to use the bathroom, or sleep, or eat; I would just be able to work and work and work: read, write, absorb, produce, move on. My stories would be written, I think to myself. Just think of the potential, of how much more I'd be able to do just from not having to sleep? That's impossible, Ben. How about this instead: How about, how much more you'd be able to get done if you prioritized, planned, and made yourself flexible? If you disciplined yourself? If you slept early and rose early? If you worked out? If you monologued to yourself less? If instead of just staring at the blank screen when you had work to do, a paper or essay or presentation or story, you just wrote and wrote and wrote, and kept at it no matter how terrible it looked until you were done? ...And now would you look at that? You now have written a page.
"I'm writing," Sean Connery's character says in the movie *Finding Forrester*. "Like you'll be, when you start punching those keys." It sounds ridiculous - of course it is easy to write like I am writing right now, writing about my writing, or rather, about my writer's block; and about my life, or perhaps more my *life's* block, if there is such a thing. One page. Just one page, that's all this place asks of me every day. How long can a person just sit in front of this desk - metallic black yet made of wood - writing about nothing, day after day after day? I wonder I wonder I wonder. I wonder how to shock myself into realizing how different each day can become, every day. I don't know how to keep myself aware of the potential and of the Spirit of God every hour of every day. It sounds impossible, yet I know people have done it... Or have they? Maybe they haven't, maybe it's just that they're doing the best they can, and the times they *do* get it right are the ones that shine brightest and count the highest, instead of keeping themselves in some sort of super-prolific "Zen" state at all times.
Reminds me of how I sued to say I wished I was a Terminator, so I wouldn't have to use the bathroom, or sleep, or eat; I would just be able to work and work and work: read, write, absorb, produce, move on. My stories would be written, I think to myself. Just think of the potential, of how much more I'd be able to do just from not having to sleep? That's impossible, Ben. How about this instead: How about, how much more you'd be able to get done if you prioritized, planned, and made yourself flexible? If you disciplined yourself? If you slept early and rose early? If you worked out? If you monologued to yourself less? If instead of just staring at the blank screen when you had work to do, a paper or essay or presentation or story, you just wrote and wrote and wrote, and kept at it no matter how terrible it looked until you were done? ...And now would you look at that? You now have written a page.
