Fear.
Beginning the process of professional writing would force me to do something that I've been wholly unwilling to do for many years: draw my future into the present.
You see, I'm satisfied with my future. It's sealed away in a tidy little package, perpetually idyllic, eternally complete. It's a beacon of hope that shines a distant light into a messy, murky present smeared with self-doubt and cluttered with failures and weakness. I can borrow from this future to finance my present, and the line of credit is never exhausted. I can be content with the "is" by virtue of the "is to come".
Except, of course, "is to come" relies on one simple point: I must move from now to then. Somehow. It won't suddenly manifest itself on my 45th birthday. And this is where my emotions have fought my mind to a stalemate. In the unconscious parts of me, I don't want to have my idyllic future, because I know that to have it is to understand and live in its flaws.
To borrow from the beacon-of-light metaphor further: If a man is out at sea in rough surf and sees the lighthouse safety, warmth, and success fill his heart...he doesn't take the time to think consciously about what it would be like to actually stand at the base of the lighthouse. To stand there is to be on the solid foundation, but it is still at the sea's edge, vulnerable to the spray of the surf and the wind and the rain. At the helm, seeing the beacon, the man at sea thinks only of the security of bedrock under his feet, and it's comforting.
To stretch a little further, suppose the man at sea is me. I grip the helm and sailor on, riding each successive swell, content in the knowledge that the lighthouse exists...but I hesitate to navigate into the harbor. I sense the rocks, I sense the darkness of the distance between here and the light...and most importantly, I don't want to find out that to be on the land is to still stand in the rain.
And I'll die at sea for it.
Or I would, if I never came about landward.
Dispensing with word painting for a moment: I've realized finally that in order to have any fulfilling future at all, I have to reach for it, mess and all, and let my imaginary success rot on the vine so that I can enjoy whatsoever real success there is to be harvested.
Apparently I can't explain this thing without symbolism and metaphor. Oh well.
A sub-point of this discovery relates directly to why I'm posting here after such a long hiatus.
I have to stop blogging. Totally. Not necessarily forever, but in order to get down to business of taking a hack at living on my ideas, I'm going to have to spend a lot of energy figuring out what those ideas are. To blog (for me) is to write to an imaginary audience whose predilections and politics I'm catering to, even as I purport to disagree. I have to learn first what I'm really trying to say, say it, and then (and only then) grapple with the response of readers. I don't doubt that if I am ever published, the things that please and displease people will surprise the pants off me.
I've got enough real struggle to do now, I don't need to make more trouble for myself by leading myself to believe that there are people waiting on me to put up something new.
So.
Thanks to all that encouraged me. You're very welcome to any that have been encouraged. I'll see you on the flip side.
