Lesson 1: demo

I am now going to take my own advice and do what I said to to in my last post on how to write a book:

"1. Is there something you obsess over mentally? Is there something you keep coming back to in your thoughts? I am not talking about those little “demons and voices” many of us have that warn us or act as naysayers. Forget about them. They will be shut up and silenced as a result of your book. No, I am talking about the recurring thoughts, questions, ideas that you and only you have that seek to find a voice and to be heard. I am talking about your dreams, your desires, your hates, your loves. I am talking about that thing inside you that you keep coming back to because it wants to be expressed fully. I am talking about the collection of experiences you’ve had that seem to reflect you more natively than anything else. I am talking about the experiences you treasure, you abhor, the ones that you consider have helped shape you and your viewpoint more than any others.

Write them down. Don’t think too much. Don’t worry if your thoughts go all over the place. We are not looking for anything more than literal brainstorming here. What are the thoughts you keep coming back to? What are the ideas that form a central theme in your life? Stop thinking: just write. We don’t care about grammar, tense, person, manners or form. We’ll have a look at where theses ideas are heading later. For now, just get them out of your head and onto the page."

What do I obsess over mentally? Weird question, lady.

I obsess over the injustices committed by others that weren't deserved and should have never been allowed to pass in my perfect world. I obsess over the fact that karma is a lazy-assed bitch and needs to be hurried up. Over the fact that life isn't fair, not any more fair at least than what little fairness we are able to impose on it/our limited stake in it. Over the vast chasm between where I want to be and where I am; what I consider myself capable of and what I have produced to date. I obsess over the inability but willingness to reconcile my inner life with my external realities; to make sense and happiness out of my present fortune by increasing my own ability to appreciate all the good that's actually there and not always bitch about what isn't there and not take the good for granted; about how to actually encourage myself to live up to my own expectations of myself; about how to control my life into the direction I want it to go in; about how to overcome barriers not of my own making.

I obsess over liars and criminals; over my own previous stupidity when it comes to having placed my trust in the wrong people; and over my unwillingness to stop believing in the prevailing better nature of man and my own difficulties in being mean and hard and cruel when I probably should be. Maybe the bad guys win more often than they should because of the good guys' unwillingness to bring a knife to a gunfight. It's highly likely that this is the case.

(This pisses me off: I wrote more but it disappeared into cyberspace)...

I obsess over beauty, and art, and the ecstatic experience available through good art. I obsess over my connectedness with other life-forms and other beings, and the web that we weave which ties us together and often entraps us in its entanglements; and the sorting-out of these entanglements and replacing chaos with order and function and good sense.

I obsess over traveling: my love of travel, my lack of travel, my ability to substitute travel (to some degree) by freeing my mind to the pursuit of creative endeavors; my love of wide open natural spaces; my love of biting salty wind off the coast of Portugal on a ketch on the Atlantic sea; my love of crisp northeastern autumn air; my love of brisk walks in bracing temperatures in the English countryside. My love of photography, and my wonderment that in spite of all the love I have for art, I haven't dedicatedly committed myself to any of its various media, because I was raised with the idea that it's a waste of effort to pursue it professionally; that art isn't really a profession, and that being an artist is something that you do on the side.

Well, ain't that a load of total fucking bullshit. LIFE is not something you "do on the side".

On a more mundane note, I obsess over my waistline, the tendency of my arms to aspire towards thickness, and my inability to shop with wild abandon at Neiman Marcus like I feel I am actually entitled to, simply by virtue of being me and being an excellent dresser and having the ability to look absolutely stunning in the clothes I pick out for myself.

I still find it confusing that I should have to earn a living by selling shit I don't really give a shit about. It surprises me, the amount of passion some people find in the jobs that they do. I couldn't really give two shits about what I do for money. This isn't entirely true of course, but I don't live to work; I work to live. My biggest dream still is to be able to transcend the need for a "day job" by becoming a full-time writer, and by actually churning out some highly readable shit that pays well. Then I actually WILL be able to shop at Neiman Marcus and do all the things I feel already entitled to, simply by virtue of being me, and expressing that to others.

Why would anyone want anything different than that for themselves? I can't even imagine. I doubt anyone does. Or does this mean that I am an artist?