Dory Previn wrote, "What most of us want is to be heard, to communicate." As writers we have a deep need to know we count, what we say matters, how we view life is intriguing. As a writer and person I need to know my presence is noticed, I matter, I count.
My connectedness to others has come over time. Learning to live with people has been a process, but learning to live with myself has been a challenge. My writing life
is a series of failures and fumbles that pretty much mirror my real life. What is wonderful about a writing life is I don't have to hold all that experience in, cling to the unworthiness I sometimes feel.
I can write until I understand the meaning of my failures and fumbles. I can write until I find acceptance of myself and of others. From my writing I grow into something unconditional, without expectations, without rules or fears of failure and fumbles. As long as I write I grow toward instead of away from.
People have come into my life that make me want to be more than I think I am or can be. They make me feel all in life is possible. One person even made me feel cherished. Some people make me feel like I won't be abandoned my greatest fear of all. When I write I must use fear of abandonment to produce a story, a character, a conflict. I must always use what I fear as a means of getting to a place I want to go.
As I write this blog
I gain greater awareness each day that others feel as I do, live as I do, need to be acknowledged as I do. I am becoming more aware that others share similar experiences in their day. The more I write the less I use the term "those people." The more I write the less I believe no one feels, thinks or acts like I do. The more I write the more I am finding people just like me with the same needs and insecurities.
As a writer
I write because I want to be heard; as a person I communicate because I need to feel I am not alone. Every person has a life filled with bumps where they have bruises, cuts and scrapes. It is not how you get beaten up by life that is important it is how you heal that is important. I have learned that I heal faster and healthier when I communicate, when I share, when I let others identify with my pain.
I write to provide a comfort to others that they are not alone. I write because I need acknowledgement that I am not alone. It is only when I am abandoned by others that I feel I can't handle the healing of the bumps in my life. In the company of others with whom I am not referring to or talking about as "those people" I am able to heal, I am able to handle the discomfort of my greatest fear abandonment.
Today my writing has a purpose. I must always remember that in writing I demonstrate willingness, I provide comfort, I am listened to, I listen and respond to the needs and willingness of others to step into the world of us rather than remain isolated in the world of "those people."
As soon as I make the judgment I am not like someone I separate myself from my purpose. I separate myself from all humanity simply by separating myself from just one single person. We are all the same feeling creatures. Our experiences are different in terms of how we get to and arrive at our feelings, but the feelings are all the same.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." How cruel the human condition is if Shaw is right. What is desire? What are my desires? Have I ever gotten my heart's desire? How long does desire last?
In my younger years my heart's desire was focused on material things. If everything looked pretty and prosperous on the outside then it was that way on the inside. As I have grown and become comfortable with myself material things have little value to me, my desire has changed.
Today I desire intangibles. I desire to be acknowledged; to feel safe amongst people, to feel cherished which is deeper than loved. Today I can write of glimpses of each of my desires. I have had them in fleeting moments and I know more moments will come. With different people, but they will still come.
As I write of my experiences and the feelings I have attached to my circumstances I somehow find peace in having my desires unfulfilled. There comes a time when writing brings clarity. Clarity comes from being able to detach from the outcome of my desires. To live and write peacefully of my unfulfilled heart's desires I must detach from myself with love rather than anger.
The direction of my desire is directly linked to how my readers will identify with my feelings of the experience. Right now I am writing a woman who very much like me continually fails to have her desires fulfilled. As the writer of this woman I must try and figure out why her desires remain unfulfilled. I must examine her, be honest about who she is and accept her fumbling so I can guide her in a direction that will allow her to have some understanding of where she fails in getting her desires fulfilled.
As a writer of her what I am doing is examining me. That is the fear, the anxiety that the blank screen on the laptop has waiting for me every day. Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, "A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down." The questions in this writer's life use to be: Can I pull this off? Am I any good? The question today is: Will my writing be laugh at as my pathetic effort to understand myself and the world a little bit more? And before I hear myself ask the question completely I answer: It doesn't matter what they think you are writing for you and no one else. Just you!
My connectedness to others has come over time. Learning to live with people has been a process, but learning to live with myself has been a challenge. My writing life
is a series of failures and fumbles that pretty much mirror my real life. What is wonderful about a writing life is I don't have to hold all that experience in, cling to the unworthiness I sometimes feel. I can write until I understand the meaning of my failures and fumbles. I can write until I find acceptance of myself and of others. From my writing I grow into something unconditional, without expectations, without rules or fears of failure and fumbles. As long as I write I grow toward instead of away from.
People have come into my life that make me want to be more than I think I am or can be. They make me feel all in life is possible. One person even made me feel cherished. Some people make me feel like I won't be abandoned my greatest fear of all. When I write I must use fear of abandonment to produce a story, a character, a conflict. I must always use what I fear as a means of getting to a place I want to go.
As I write this blog
I gain greater awareness each day that others feel as I do, live as I do, need to be acknowledged as I do. I am becoming more aware that others share similar experiences in their day. The more I write the less I use the term "those people." The more I write the less I believe no one feels, thinks or acts like I do. The more I write the more I am finding people just like me with the same needs and insecurities. As a writer
I write because I want to be heard; as a person I communicate because I need to feel I am not alone. Every person has a life filled with bumps where they have bruises, cuts and scrapes. It is not how you get beaten up by life that is important it is how you heal that is important. I have learned that I heal faster and healthier when I communicate, when I share, when I let others identify with my pain. I write to provide a comfort to others that they are not alone. I write because I need acknowledgement that I am not alone. It is only when I am abandoned by others that I feel I can't handle the healing of the bumps in my life. In the company of others with whom I am not referring to or talking about as "those people" I am able to heal, I am able to handle the discomfort of my greatest fear abandonment.
Today my writing has a purpose. I must always remember that in writing I demonstrate willingness, I provide comfort, I am listened to, I listen and respond to the needs and willingness of others to step into the world of us rather than remain isolated in the world of "those people."
As soon as I make the judgment I am not like someone I separate myself from my purpose. I separate myself from all humanity simply by separating myself from just one single person. We are all the same feeling creatures. Our experiences are different in terms of how we get to and arrive at our feelings, but the feelings are all the same.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it." How cruel the human condition is if Shaw is right. What is desire? What are my desires? Have I ever gotten my heart's desire? How long does desire last?
In my younger years my heart's desire was focused on material things. If everything looked pretty and prosperous on the outside then it was that way on the inside. As I have grown and become comfortable with myself material things have little value to me, my desire has changed.
Today I desire intangibles. I desire to be acknowledged; to feel safe amongst people, to feel cherished which is deeper than loved. Today I can write of glimpses of each of my desires. I have had them in fleeting moments and I know more moments will come. With different people, but they will still come.
As I write of my experiences and the feelings I have attached to my circumstances I somehow find peace in having my desires unfulfilled. There comes a time when writing brings clarity. Clarity comes from being able to detach from the outcome of my desires. To live and write peacefully of my unfulfilled heart's desires I must detach from myself with love rather than anger.
The direction of my desire is directly linked to how my readers will identify with my feelings of the experience. Right now I am writing a woman who very much like me continually fails to have her desires fulfilled. As the writer of this woman I must try and figure out why her desires remain unfulfilled. I must examine her, be honest about who she is and accept her fumbling so I can guide her in a direction that will allow her to have some understanding of where she fails in getting her desires fulfilled.
As a writer of her what I am doing is examining me. That is the fear, the anxiety that the blank screen on the laptop has waiting for me every day. Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, "A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down." The questions in this writer's life use to be: Can I pull this off? Am I any good? The question today is: Will my writing be laugh at as my pathetic effort to understand myself and the world a little bit more? And before I hear myself ask the question completely I answer: It doesn't matter what they think you are writing for you and no one else. Just you!
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