I like being a miserable writer.
I don't view writing as a pleasure. I don't attain a fleeting sense of ecstasy from the conclusion of an inspired thought, as I feel has become expected of we the artists existing in this time of spiritual evolution. We the Indigo Children acknowledge our lack of regard for the social structure imposed upon us, our disdain for the monetary system which invades our true freedom, the overhead music and billboard advertisement and radio announcement screaming "CONFORM! CONFORM!" Some of us have evolved beyond the permissible pre-packaged life, some of us are still trying to break the mold or at the very least, rearrange the furniture of our lives. Regardless, I was grandfathered into a privileged inner circle of writers who stood on the front lines of protests, in the deep jungles of war-torn countries, the writer's who wrote about being down and out while spending their last shillings on a fifth of Bourbon, writers who tore recklessly across South America on mopeds, writers who pummeled down the treacherous hills of San Francisco high on hallucinogens. I belong to the company of players who exercise their demons by Howling at the institution "FUCK YOU! I'll sleep on the sidewalk if I dare and I'll kiss men and women in the same evening. I'll wake up regretful only that I didn't smash every storefront window of the shopping district on my way home last night."
Writing centers me, it takes the hype and the spectrum of emotional extremes out of the my head and onto paper. It depletes me like a gentle orgasm, after which I feel happily void of all expectations and aspirations. I just am, existing outside the confines of discernible time and space. My perception is neither focused nor distracted. Writing is my meditation, my sabbatical from responsibility, my retreat from the hundred year war waging inside of me between the voice in my head and the song in my heart.
Ryan recently said he felt defeated that Truman Capote had his first work published at 23 and as far as Ryan could tell, Capote never had another job other than writing. I couldn't provide any form of eloquent encouragement to lift the despair on his heart. At one time I felt a connection to an endless tap of sagely wisdom. I drew from the well of benevolence in hope of keeping everyone's head above water but that supply has long since dried up as I have reached an age of realizing that my philosophies are fallible in the face of life. All I could think to say to him was "Do what makes sense to you. Don't get detoured by the bullshit anymore. When you focus on your passion, everything else ceases to matter."
I know his struggle. It is my own. Foremost we are soul mates and secondly, writers cut from the same bolt of fabric. I have looked around me time and again, nauseatingly intimidated by the possibility that there are better writers than me, or worse, that there are writers with more drive and less talent whom will achieve the level of success I desire. (See "Twilight" for a prime example) It's never about the money, but the notoriety, the acknowledgement from friends, family, community that I've MADE IT! I AM A LITERARY GENIUS! I have produced a piece of work sanctioned by the common reader! For some emotionally complex reason, an endorsement by the mundane means nothing and everything to either of us.
Bukowski once wrote in response to a woman who threw herself on stage demanding that he fuck her, "Where were you when I was living on one candy bar a day... and sending short stories to the Atlantic Monthly?" That's how I feel about retail work and Ryan comparing himself to Capote's youthful acclaim and the discouraging audiences made up of our most beloveds and being a "happy" writer. Fuck that.
Happy is the writer who wakes up to smoke a cigarette, takes a long shit, a long shower, a long walk without interruption, absorbs the grimy Westport streets under the brooding grey overcast and makes note of the thin line between themselves and the aimlessly wandering homeless. Happy is the writer who bargains for another day, another smoke, another warm meal and stares at the sidewalk while smoking that cigarette hoping the blustery day will entangle a lost $20 bill in their shoelaces. Happy is the writer who has convention to nestle up with when the last adventure was as depleting as all those before, meaning it encompassed coast to coast absurdity and thankfully, ended with a spell of domestic tranquility. Everyone needs to recharge, even the willingly insane. Happy is the writer who counts the number of ceramic burro's on the porches of little Mexico residents. Happy is the writer who voyeurs a screaming match between dope fiends with pants too short and hair too tall.
Happy is this writer kept alive by the guilt of never completing the masterpiece. If you ever think you're good enough to stop, you weren't good enough to begin with. You must keep experiencing, which will in turn keep you working. Nothing else matters because....nothing else matters. I don't know what sort of internal struggles Capote faced because I never had the chance to ask him. But I assume they are struggles similar to what we all face or he wouldn't have drank himself into oblivion. Thompson and Hemingway and all the others...masking the insecurity of losing their coveted titles because they wanted both safari's and a house in the Hampton's. It's hard to make peace with who you are when the building blocks of your self are from every era, culture and civilization. Sometimes brick and mortar crushes buffalo skin and wooden poles...the Underwood doesn't fit in the laptop case and Moleskin doesn't allow the immediate posting of genius thoughts to a limitless social network and sometimes creative writing courses can be suffocating.
Ryan, the statistical probability that most of us will drop off the scene once we buy houses or have children or find full time jobs is the creation of technological dunces with nothing better to do than calculate who didn't have the gusto to do much more than write a sci-fi short story. The drop-out's weren't writers from the soul, they were writers who learned a simulated craft in the classroom of some community college and had neither the talent nor the patience to find and explore and share their voice. Writers are writers before they are humans, lovers, parents, siblings, children, employees. True writers never quit because it's as impossible to halt as blinking.
I hope you never numb out the voice that urges us to drop acid right before a funeral or a baby shower, because that voice is your voice, that voice is my voice and when that voice dies, we will have lost our senses of self. Don't just pray it never comes to that. Don't let it come to that. Be as miserable as is required to create something beautiful.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Let the games...end.
Bankruptcy.
I've said that word aloud to my 4 life confidants and they've all shuddered with fear of repercussions.
Understandably so. Bankruptcy is synonymous with public shame, poverty and being confined a lower class of citizens who lack trustworthy attributes.
I disagree and so I am filing bankruptcy, with an enormous smile on my face and relief in my heart. I won't play the game any longer.
My life has consisted of navigating the treacherous waters of what is expected of me which has ultimately compromised who I am. I have worked in the corporate cubicles and the dimly lit warehouses. I have heaved alfalfa bales from the backs of semi's and panhandled for change on San Francisco piers. I've had 401K's and savings accounts, been approved for new cars with no down payments, I've worked 3 jobs while attending 4 classes a week. I've given money to charity, paid for dinner and drinks, bought gifts, pawned DVD's, traded, bartered, sacrificed, done without, starved, exceeded, depleted...I've played this game long enough.
And it is a game. A game of control. A slave trade. Your life for their luxuries. Observe the honorary doctorates schools literally HAND OUT to public officials and alumni's turned celebrity who "make a difference" in the world. You can buy a bachelors, a masters, a doctorate. It's the American way. I'm still buying my bachelor's and I will be for the next 40 years. I paid them for the opportunity to prove my worthiness. I paid them to teach me that a 10-page Psychology paper can be written on a laptop strategically positioned between a Corona and my next hand of poker. I paid them for the validation that comes with a new paint job and higher fuel efficiency. I paid my captors, and I won't do so any longer. I won't play their game anymore.
People say this is your 20's, you pay your dues, you make the right choices and sometime in your 40's you might have a second to breathe easy before you begin physically waning. As Americans we're bred with a sense of entitlement that at some point it will get easier, we've earned it, it MUST! But it's all part of a great big complex lie, the societal stigma of finally reaching the pentacle of success. It's like the first time your parents split the dinner check with you, or even more surprising, to you tonight was your treat....it never gets easier, it never gets more rewarding. This game is a parasite and once you're infected you do everything you can to stay alive.
Now don't get me wrong, my life is incredible. I'm filing bankruptcy knowing that I have a roof over my head eternally. I have everything a person could want and for that I am filled with gratitude so tremendous it has and will continue to change the voice of my writing. The anger that once fueled every line on every page has softened. The voice that speaks now is low and subtle. She is less focused on how she's being perceived and more so focused on clarity. She doesn't have the time for the bullshit, for the struggle. That voice is fearless knowing that when it all falls apart, what remains is the indestructible driving force of your soul.
And I have been stripped bare. I have been so naked and raw in the past year that I thought I'd never recover. I have lost everything I have worked for including my sense of entitlement and expectation about how my life would look at this age, in 10 years, in 20. I have split directly down the middle and what I've always known to be true is the only thing that remains. I'm going to die. You're going to die. Life is terminal. You're wasting your time focusing on anything that doesn't give you complete and total fulfillment. Do what you have to do only to get exactly where you want to be, lose it all. Ask for help, ban together, release the expectations of what makes you whole from the outside in. Have goals, ambitions, and the ability to recognize when you've reached your destination and then REDEFINE, so that you don't become stagnant....without that mindset, you're still going to die, but unfulfilled.
I won't live that life. I won't be that person. I won't play their game any longer. I have a choice and I choose to live.
I've said that word aloud to my 4 life confidants and they've all shuddered with fear of repercussions.
Understandably so. Bankruptcy is synonymous with public shame, poverty and being confined a lower class of citizens who lack trustworthy attributes.
I disagree and so I am filing bankruptcy, with an enormous smile on my face and relief in my heart. I won't play the game any longer.
My life has consisted of navigating the treacherous waters of what is expected of me which has ultimately compromised who I am. I have worked in the corporate cubicles and the dimly lit warehouses. I have heaved alfalfa bales from the backs of semi's and panhandled for change on San Francisco piers. I've had 401K's and savings accounts, been approved for new cars with no down payments, I've worked 3 jobs while attending 4 classes a week. I've given money to charity, paid for dinner and drinks, bought gifts, pawned DVD's, traded, bartered, sacrificed, done without, starved, exceeded, depleted...I've played this game long enough.
And it is a game. A game of control. A slave trade. Your life for their luxuries. Observe the honorary doctorates schools literally HAND OUT to public officials and alumni's turned celebrity who "make a difference" in the world. You can buy a bachelors, a masters, a doctorate. It's the American way. I'm still buying my bachelor's and I will be for the next 40 years. I paid them for the opportunity to prove my worthiness. I paid them to teach me that a 10-page Psychology paper can be written on a laptop strategically positioned between a Corona and my next hand of poker. I paid them for the validation that comes with a new paint job and higher fuel efficiency. I paid my captors, and I won't do so any longer. I won't play their game anymore.
People say this is your 20's, you pay your dues, you make the right choices and sometime in your 40's you might have a second to breathe easy before you begin physically waning. As Americans we're bred with a sense of entitlement that at some point it will get easier, we've earned it, it MUST! But it's all part of a great big complex lie, the societal stigma of finally reaching the pentacle of success. It's like the first time your parents split the dinner check with you, or even more surprising, to you tonight was your treat....it never gets easier, it never gets more rewarding. This game is a parasite and once you're infected you do everything you can to stay alive.
Now don't get me wrong, my life is incredible. I'm filing bankruptcy knowing that I have a roof over my head eternally. I have everything a person could want and for that I am filled with gratitude so tremendous it has and will continue to change the voice of my writing. The anger that once fueled every line on every page has softened. The voice that speaks now is low and subtle. She is less focused on how she's being perceived and more so focused on clarity. She doesn't have the time for the bullshit, for the struggle. That voice is fearless knowing that when it all falls apart, what remains is the indestructible driving force of your soul.
And I have been stripped bare. I have been so naked and raw in the past year that I thought I'd never recover. I have lost everything I have worked for including my sense of entitlement and expectation about how my life would look at this age, in 10 years, in 20. I have split directly down the middle and what I've always known to be true is the only thing that remains. I'm going to die. You're going to die. Life is terminal. You're wasting your time focusing on anything that doesn't give you complete and total fulfillment. Do what you have to do only to get exactly where you want to be, lose it all. Ask for help, ban together, release the expectations of what makes you whole from the outside in. Have goals, ambitions, and the ability to recognize when you've reached your destination and then REDEFINE, so that you don't become stagnant....without that mindset, you're still going to die, but unfulfilled.
I won't live that life. I won't be that person. I won't play their game any longer. I have a choice and I choose to live.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Dream a dream
Does it make me weak in spirit that I am defeated by a lack of culturally accepted employment?
My beloved said to me yesterday, "Stop telling people you are unemployed. You are a writer who is working on a novel and freelance opportunities."
Sometimes it is the simplest statements that change my entire perspective.
And so I woke up this morning, drove to Lawrence to attend a Zen ceremony which I reached too late to participate in and thus found myself in an underground coffee shop doodling on tables and wondering if the afternoon job interview I have will go well. I should be working on my book. I will. I will. The biggest obstacle is still my own fear of failure, of loving something so hard and wanting something so much that the material success has nothing to do with it but ensuring that every detail is included does...what are the repercussions of forgetting a single eyelash, a chip in the paint on the park bench, the dimness of a bar bathroom light bulb? Only a writer wonders these things.
People call me brave. They say "I want your life. I would've never driven across the country alone, much less afforded to live in California." You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when there's nothing left to look at in your rear view mirror. I didn't go to California to be brave or extraordinary or even to escape. I went to California to fall apart. To lock myself away in a 12x12 studio apartment and spent nights on end writing out everything I didn't have the courage to say in the face of people I loved too much to hurt.
Traveling isn't brave. Relocating isn't brave. Forgiveness is brave.
A few nights ago Rachel read the prologue and first chapter of my book. I don't know what I expected in regards to a reaction. When Ryan first heard my prologue his jaw dropped. I'd compiled a year of writing into 10 pages in the 6 weeks we didn't speak to one another. Ten pages is an eternity when every syllable possesses the ability to change or end a life. His hoots and hollers of "hallelujah" and "holy shit" were the reactions I've come to expect from one writer to another, specifically when the work is astounding; and I know the work is astounding. It is my soul turned inside out for the word to touch and taste and dissect. Rachel, however, stopped breathing a little bit....then took a very deep breath, one after the other until tears began to flow. The synopsis of her reaction was that she had no idea.
I do not blame her for being unaware of what California felt like in its most despairing moments, or for not really understanding why I abandoned Kansas. No one really knew, including me, and it is still an abstract concept that I am deciphering...like a philosophy or an acid trip or a coma. Despite how alone and miserable I was for majority of my time there, California still feels magical, like the inside of a fort tent or the idea of a unicorn. Berkeley in particular will always hold a very dear place in my heart, as will City Lights Books and Jack Kerouac Alley, and the women I loved there and the moment I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time with Ryan and Johanna by my sides...exactly as it should have been.
I have returned to Kansas, moved into a home as beautiful as New Mexico at sunrise...a house, a home I don't have to sacrifice in a year's time when the lease is up, a home that I can attach to. A place I can paint and stain the hardwood and put the Bukowski's on the shelf and know they are safe. I have moved in with my love, lover, partner-- a reliable, dependable, supportive, nurturing anomaly of a human being who leaves no room in my heart for anyone else. She has been my forever since our first interaction and now that emotion has become reality. I am happy. I am safe. I am loved. I am home.
So what then of this book? What then of paying bills? I keep asking the Universe just that..."how is it that you want me to pay my bills?" And I hear nothing. Just the silence of my own indecision. Just the clockwork motor of my fear ticking, racing me from point A to point B like a wind-up toy. Until I stand still and am appreciative of this talent, of this very apparent purpose, the peace of mind to work as I so choose will not come. So what then of this car? Of these credit cards and utilities and student loan repayments? What about those? I pull three oracle cards...they say "Let it go," "Focus on your passion's priorities" and the final card, "Write." So here I am...doing what Ryan always tells me to do....telling the truth. If I were to watch my car get repossessed, let my credit fall to shit and live my life on cash earned only when I feel inclined to participate on Capitalism...it sounds like a dream, like a life too good to be true, and significantly too good for me. This entire experience feels too good for me.Perhaps that's what it all boils down to- I've set the bar high enough for other people to fail but not high enough to risk personal failure. It's time to raise my bar, take a hold of my life and let go of the fear. I want for nothing. I have everything I need and I truly need very little. A life without money as the main focus and purpose, a life with only literature and writing and desert wandering...and love, an abundance of love....a dream forming into a reality piece by piece.
My beloved said to me yesterday, "Stop telling people you are unemployed. You are a writer who is working on a novel and freelance opportunities."
Sometimes it is the simplest statements that change my entire perspective.
And so I woke up this morning, drove to Lawrence to attend a Zen ceremony which I reached too late to participate in and thus found myself in an underground coffee shop doodling on tables and wondering if the afternoon job interview I have will go well. I should be working on my book. I will. I will. The biggest obstacle is still my own fear of failure, of loving something so hard and wanting something so much that the material success has nothing to do with it but ensuring that every detail is included does...what are the repercussions of forgetting a single eyelash, a chip in the paint on the park bench, the dimness of a bar bathroom light bulb? Only a writer wonders these things.
People call me brave. They say "I want your life. I would've never driven across the country alone, much less afforded to live in California." You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when there's nothing left to look at in your rear view mirror. I didn't go to California to be brave or extraordinary or even to escape. I went to California to fall apart. To lock myself away in a 12x12 studio apartment and spent nights on end writing out everything I didn't have the courage to say in the face of people I loved too much to hurt.
Traveling isn't brave. Relocating isn't brave. Forgiveness is brave.
A few nights ago Rachel read the prologue and first chapter of my book. I don't know what I expected in regards to a reaction. When Ryan first heard my prologue his jaw dropped. I'd compiled a year of writing into 10 pages in the 6 weeks we didn't speak to one another. Ten pages is an eternity when every syllable possesses the ability to change or end a life. His hoots and hollers of "hallelujah" and "holy shit" were the reactions I've come to expect from one writer to another, specifically when the work is astounding; and I know the work is astounding. It is my soul turned inside out for the word to touch and taste and dissect. Rachel, however, stopped breathing a little bit....then took a very deep breath, one after the other until tears began to flow. The synopsis of her reaction was that she had no idea.
I do not blame her for being unaware of what California felt like in its most despairing moments, or for not really understanding why I abandoned Kansas. No one really knew, including me, and it is still an abstract concept that I am deciphering...like a philosophy or an acid trip or a coma. Despite how alone and miserable I was for majority of my time there, California still feels magical, like the inside of a fort tent or the idea of a unicorn. Berkeley in particular will always hold a very dear place in my heart, as will City Lights Books and Jack Kerouac Alley, and the women I loved there and the moment I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time with Ryan and Johanna by my sides...exactly as it should have been.
I have returned to Kansas, moved into a home as beautiful as New Mexico at sunrise...a house, a home I don't have to sacrifice in a year's time when the lease is up, a home that I can attach to. A place I can paint and stain the hardwood and put the Bukowski's on the shelf and know they are safe. I have moved in with my love, lover, partner-- a reliable, dependable, supportive, nurturing anomaly of a human being who leaves no room in my heart for anyone else. She has been my forever since our first interaction and now that emotion has become reality. I am happy. I am safe. I am loved. I am home.
So what then of this book? What then of paying bills? I keep asking the Universe just that..."how is it that you want me to pay my bills?" And I hear nothing. Just the silence of my own indecision. Just the clockwork motor of my fear ticking, racing me from point A to point B like a wind-up toy. Until I stand still and am appreciative of this talent, of this very apparent purpose, the peace of mind to work as I so choose will not come. So what then of this car? Of these credit cards and utilities and student loan repayments? What about those? I pull three oracle cards...they say "Let it go," "Focus on your passion's priorities" and the final card, "Write." So here I am...doing what Ryan always tells me to do....telling the truth. If I were to watch my car get repossessed, let my credit fall to shit and live my life on cash earned only when I feel inclined to participate on Capitalism...it sounds like a dream, like a life too good to be true, and significantly too good for me. This entire experience feels too good for me.Perhaps that's what it all boils down to- I've set the bar high enough for other people to fail but not high enough to risk personal failure. It's time to raise my bar, take a hold of my life and let go of the fear. I want for nothing. I have everything I need and I truly need very little. A life without money as the main focus and purpose, a life with only literature and writing and desert wandering...and love, an abundance of love....a dream forming into a reality piece by piece.
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