BEING a writer does not mean you can write everything you would have wanted to write. It’s a reality of life, you have to earn your keep and that will leave you just a little time to do what you want. And if you’re as hyper active as me... that means a lot.
So what is it I want to do? I want to write a lot more than I am writing, and with a wider genre than newspaper writing. I have two book assignments now. Three actually, but I have given up on one since time seems to have ran out. There’s a 15-book assignment as well that I will be needing help from a lot of friends to finish. Then, I miss diving, I should be diving. I haven’t gone up the mountain to visit mountain villages for almost a year now. I need to listen to their stories, and soon. I’d want to pick up my paint brush soon, as well, but I can’t decide which--the acrylic or the water color, or the Chinese. The piano has to be played, I’m once again getting rusty. Rustier still are my fingers for guitar playing, and my brain for reading notes.
I’ve lived long enough to know that we need to make time and jump into what you really, really want to do. Except that... yes. I’ve so many things I want to do, I am inching forward... inch by inch, fighting sleepiness.
With the crop of friends I am still able to mingle with, there is that feeling of not doing enough. If you ever think you are too busy, meet my friends and you will feel like the laziest bum. That’s the very reason why the poem “Desiderata” never loses its appeal nor relevance, specifically the part that says:
“If you compare yourself with others,
“you may become vain and bitter;
“for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
“Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.”
That does not stop me from wanting to scream at them to slow down. Then I look at myself, and feel just as guilty.
Really now, what is it that you want to write? I ask myself, and try to sift through every written word and follow the one that lights me up the most. I guess, that’s just how it goes, to find that which lights you up the most, may it be in writing or in other things.
True, there are the basics that have to be addressed, the basics that provide the means of livelihood, the constants in life. But, life doesn’t end there. There are the basics, and then there’s the higher level, the bliss.
Of late, my subconscious and conscious have become very good friends such that when a dream takes on a less than pleasant turn, my conscious would just interrupt to tell me to wake up since being distressed over a dream is a useless exercise, and source of stress. And I would wake up.
There is that choice. There is also the choice to make the subconscious take over and dream the dreams that lead toward things tangible, and those are the more beautiful dreams as they bring surprises beyond your conscious imagination.
The first step, know how and then know what.