Uncertain about Writing
I am really uncertain about whether or not I should write a book. It seems like it is something that I have put off for a very long time. There has always been an internal prompting for me to write one. However, as I get older, I think to myself that almost everything I thought was important really is not. Every pop-culture reference, joke, effort to improve myself, vocation, avocation, etc. was simply another distraction away from something else I should have been focused on. Maybe that other thing was to express myself and my views with a novel, especially since my writing is one of the few things that I have gotten the most positive feedback from other people about, but then again, maybe not. All I know for sure is that the "one thing" that I should be working for always seems to escape me. I know it is there, but I don't know what it is.
I'll be really honest at the moment. I am solidly middle-aged. I have no money for retirement, a part-time job that I can barely do regularly and probably should have been fired from a year ago, and tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. I never managed to find a companion to share my life with despite my efforts to try, and I have no tangible assets like a house of my own, savings, or a decent car. It is hard not to feel like the world's biggest failure.
I wish there was another word for jealousy. Jealousy implies that there is a passion inside the person afflicted with it, a drive that keeps the fires of emotion burning hot. The jealousy I feel is very cold. It is a sad recognition that many things that I dared to hope for are somehow impossible, so daring to hope feels dangerous. If I had allowed myself to feel the hot jealousy for the average achievements of a common person (ie. a steady and successful job, a loving family, a pleasant relationship with a wife, etc.) then I would be consumed by pain. Instead, whenever I feel the first twinge of wanting more than I can apparently achieve, I avert my inner and outer gaze as quickly as possible. Too much focus on those things will be dangerous. I can't do it.
I keep hearing from everyone around me that the economy really is difficult right now, but I have to say that, when looked at globally, it hardly seems like our economic problems will be solved soon enough for me to benefit from. I need about a hundred miracles for these troubles to go away, but I doubt they'll be arriving any time soon. I don't want to sound so negative, but I have to say that the whole world is in a real fix, and that, while I didn't personally cause the troubles it has, they will affect me more than I would like and more than I can change. Writing, a broad and non-specific avenue towards a fantasy of redemption, whispers into my heart and suggests that it is the only hope I would ever have at climbing out of my current mess. It has been done before, but I also know I'd have to be very lucky and have a better plan than I do now.
I'll be really honest at the moment. I am solidly middle-aged. I have no money for retirement, a part-time job that I can barely do regularly and probably should have been fired from a year ago, and tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. I never managed to find a companion to share my life with despite my efforts to try, and I have no tangible assets like a house of my own, savings, or a decent car. It is hard not to feel like the world's biggest failure.
I wish there was another word for jealousy. Jealousy implies that there is a passion inside the person afflicted with it, a drive that keeps the fires of emotion burning hot. The jealousy I feel is very cold. It is a sad recognition that many things that I dared to hope for are somehow impossible, so daring to hope feels dangerous. If I had allowed myself to feel the hot jealousy for the average achievements of a common person (ie. a steady and successful job, a loving family, a pleasant relationship with a wife, etc.) then I would be consumed by pain. Instead, whenever I feel the first twinge of wanting more than I can apparently achieve, I avert my inner and outer gaze as quickly as possible. Too much focus on those things will be dangerous. I can't do it.
I keep hearing from everyone around me that the economy really is difficult right now, but I have to say that, when looked at globally, it hardly seems like our economic problems will be solved soon enough for me to benefit from. I need about a hundred miracles for these troubles to go away, but I doubt they'll be arriving any time soon. I don't want to sound so negative, but I have to say that the whole world is in a real fix, and that, while I didn't personally cause the troubles it has, they will affect me more than I would like and more than I can change. Writing, a broad and non-specific avenue towards a fantasy of redemption, whispers into my heart and suggests that it is the only hope I would ever have at climbing out of my current mess. It has been done before, but I also know I'd have to be very lucky and have a better plan than I do now.
17 June 2013
Comments:
Post a Comment
