You are guaranteed very, very little, bordering on nothing at all, in this world. There are guarantees of certain, axiomatic truths. Tautologies. So, nothing worth a shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re not guaranteed the sun will rise tomorrow, and you\u2019re certainly not guaranteed that you<\/em> will rise tomorrow. You\u2019re not guaranteed peace, happiness, unhappiness, war, pestilence, or the winning lottery numbers. You\u2019re not guaranteed that you\u2019ll be able to finish a list of guarantees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you\u2019re damn sure not guaranteed that the next thing you write will be any good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How would you go about guaranteeing such a thing, just logically? You\u2019re gonna know your next thoughts are gonna be good before you think them<\/em>? Be fuckin\u2019 for real. And just as there\u2019s no idea too bad that it can\u2019t be saved through amazing execution, there\u2019s no idea so powerful, so moving and transcendental, that it couldn\u2019t be sabotaged by the brain farts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, realistically, this shouldn\u2019t be on your mind. Why waste cycles on an impossibility? You won\u2019t know how a creative work goes until you do it any more than you won\u2019t be positive your car will start the next time you try to go get a burrito.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take the cap off the pen. Take the metaphorical computer cap off the computer pen. It doesn\u2019t matter. Don\u2019t worry about what you\u2019re going to write and fucking go<\/em>. Write something people aren\u2019t supposed to see, and put \u201cif you\u2019re reading this fuck you, I don\u2019t like you\u201d somewhere in there to let them know. Just go. Go in with no plans, go in with no thoughts<\/em> and see what happens. You have my permission for it to be bad. You should extend yourself the same courtesy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just go. Write about your day, or the chair your sitting in, that it\u2019s best days might be past it and you\u2019re acutely aware that you have a lumbar. Use the wrong \u2018your\u2019 and the wrong \u201cit\u2019s\u201d. It doesn\u2019t matter at all. Write that song lyric that\u2019s stuck in your head, and see where it goes from there. Write about your dog or some dog you saw one time. Edit nothing, censor nothing. Revision is boring and sterile, and you are neither. The first thing you wanna say is what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I fucking love<\/em> Writing Down The Bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same way that I am supposed to give myself space and time to lament the loss of normalcy to bipolar disorder, I\u2019ll choose to give myself this space to lament the lost opportunities of writing about any number of simple, beautiful moments that have come and gone, synapses and electricity painting a picture I\u2019ve already forgotten. Writing is synesthesia. A fragrance can engage nostalgia, paint visuals, stir memories. Writing can engage nostalgia for a place you\u2019ve never been<\/em>. How lucky are we that we can do this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been censoring myself, editing myself, pulling myself up short for several years now. This is hypomania, you should reconsider if you want to do this. Yeah, that\u2019s for buying a boat in a landlocked desert state, not for fucking writing. When it\u2019s not the thoughtful me, that probably (certainly) thinks he knows more than he really does about bipolar, trying to keep me away from things, it\u2019s this weird illogical trepidation about perfection or the lack thereof. Diana thinks it\u2019s because I got made fun of a lot growing up, but I think it\u2019s the opposite. This is the thing I was always praised for. This and speaking. I wasn\u2019t consulted about my voice, but people seem to like it. Great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I earned this.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Or maybe I didn\u2019t, fuck. Who knows? I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything that lends one to being a better writer, but that feels a little out of the wheelhouse of evolution. I\u2019m gonna take it, I\u2019m gonna claim it, because it makes as much or more sense than not doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I just get wrapped around this axle of \u201cyou\u2019ve always been told you\u2019re good at this, so that\u2019s the bar, good. Is this thing you\u2019re going to write good? What if it isn\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, what if it isn\u2019t?<\/em> Who dies? Writing is so far removed from consequence most of the time that the question is just asinine. What if it isn\u2019t? Then\u2026I still wrote something? I wrote something kinda bad?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t even have to share it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s just journaling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s really easy to not share something bad after you wrote it. In fact, it\u2019s the opposite of action. So why not worry about that when the time comes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, is it because you want<\/em> to share it, so you want<\/em> it to be good? Yeah, that\u2019s generally what we do indeed want. But an important step in the process is take the cap off the pen and fucking GO.<\/em> In fact, that improves the odds of it being good significantly, by virtue of its existence lending some semblance of possibility to the rest of it. Fight one battle at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heaven forbid somebody I don\u2019t know harumphs and grumbles, \u201cOh, this piece by Daniel wasn\u2019t as good as that other piece.\u201d Yeah, sorry, would you like a refund?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s honestly crazy that given how generally rational I am, or at least would like to think I am, that I can get twisted around the axle in this way about something that logically makes not an iota of sense. You do the thing, then you decide what to do with<\/em> the thing, and both sides of the decision have no consequences<\/em>. With the notable exception that I did<\/em> write and thus probably improved<\/em> my chances of the next thing being<\/em> good, by one percent or a hundred. Reps. This extends to other things I\u2019ve had trepidation about beginning, as though I don\u2019t want to start a hobby because I\u2019m not going to be any good at the hobby when I do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Correct?? Nobody\u2019s really born good at shit. There\u2019s a distinction between being born with the potential to be<\/em> good at a thing and being born good at the thing. Nobody\u2019s got the latter except for crying and taking a dump, and even those aren\u2019t guarantees!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take the cap off the pen and go, would ya? Pick up the brush, unwrap the clay, sling the guitar around your neck. Anything but the cowardice masquerading as perfectionism. Cowardice isn\u2019t innate, it\u2019s learned, it\u2019s imparted by outside forces as a survival technique. And by and large, our brains aren\u2019t great at deciphering the difference between fear of failure and fear of being eaten by wolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Eddings is my favorite fiction author. I find his stuff so approachable, simple and easy, clear motives and plots. And he once confided to readers that he wrote a book so bad he fucking burned it<\/em>. It\u2019s not just doing that, it\u2019s admitting<\/em> that you did that which really sends the message. Nobody bats a thousand. Do it right once out of every three times for twenty years and they\u2019d put you in the baseball hall of fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were looking for a sign to start, or continue, doing something, maybe this is it. Go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You are guaranteed very, very little, bordering on nothing at all, in this world. There are guarantees of certain, axiomatic truths. Tautologies. So, nothing worth a shit. You\u2019re not guaranteed the sun will rise tomorrow, and you\u2019re certainly not guaranteed that you will rise tomorrow. You\u2019re not guaranteed peace, happiness, unhappiness, war, pestilence, or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-deep-thoughts","category-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1RwV4-fM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}