As heard between my inertia and my desires...

It’s hard starting over. Every time I sit back down to rebuilding this endeavor, this little bastion of words I’m left sitting at the blank page thinking back over all of the experiences that I’ve been privy to since my last bout of expression. Then it’s back to the computer, stuck with the voice in the back of my head that claims that creativity is permanently broken (just turn on the television, it’ll do your thinking for you…) or that structure has failed me (sentence sensy makey?) or worse still, the deeper skeptic we all the posses, the “What’s the use” part of our ego help bent on holding me right where I am, as a worker bee and consumer unit.

It helps to remember that this isn’t the first time I’ve done battle with these particular devils, yet they persist. Why though? Why do I fight with the same issues over and over, continue to revisit the same places? I would like to think that it’s simply an outgrowth of habit, something replaced with a change of habits? It could also be a part of the human condition – if this were true all we would have to do is turn to the stories of those who made it despite this fundamental handicap. Could it be fear, or the noise of a fight or flight system that remains overly sensitive to our socialized life?

At the end of the day, I would like to think that it’s at once all of those facts and none of the above. In fact I will not even begin to try to tease out all of the possible options, for all I know I could be hesitant to do what I love because I’m under some alien donkey warlock curse. In fact I don’t think that any of the symptoms and any of the descriptions really put to light the notion that is both the short cut and the scenic route to moving beyond those familiar spawn of Loki – I simply haven’t come up with an answer for them yet.

Hopefully this isn’t just me, but we all run around with a million voices in our day. Some are our friends, reminding us that we should do this with our lives or avoid that. Others are our parents, pushing mental Brussels sprouts (which I have grown to really enjoy, you were right Mom and Dad). They can come from anywhere, but frequently the voices I hear are mine and mine alone. They’re all making noise, but are they just yelling or instead trying to strike up a conversation? To tell it again, but tell it slant: isn’t everything just an ongoing conversation and why aren’t we getting more involved in the dialogue?

So what are the “voices”? A helpful primer: if the dog is telling you to sharpen the hacksaw for use on the neighbor, please immediately seek assistance. If your fridge is talking to you, depending on what it says call the Ghostbusters. If the voice you hear is yours telling you to give it up because it won’t get better, or to stay away from that cream cheese Danish, or to go after that job you’ve been meaning to, or “perhaps I should get going on that novel”, or fighting to run that last mile, all of those would be spot on. All of moments when we either feel compelled to ask ourselves something, or when we hear from the depth of our minds “You should,” or even when we feel compelled to do something - where do these notions come from, why are they there and who says we listen to some or any of them?

One question at a time though, how can everything be conversation, and what does that even mean? On a certain level all things are a dialogue. Our cells communicate with our organs which communicate with our organ systems which communicate with our minds which communicates with others who communicate with each other etc. etc. until we get right up to the center of the universe (wherever that may actually be) communicating with everything spinning around it. Be it through physical laws, through words, through pictures, through sex, through a facial expression we are constantly engaged in a discourse with ourselves, the fruits of which are in turn communicated externally.

Why think this way? Who cares if we think of the cells conversion of fats to ATP as a conversation? And how is that related to my anxiety that no one will care about what I’m writing about? It’s important because it’s sensitive to the fact that we always have a choice – we can change the conversation. Need to metabolize your sugar more efficiently? Watch what food does to your blood sugar (you’re communicating with your body, it will respond with your relative health). Need to overcome the inertia of your particular mediocrity to head towards your greatness? Change what you are telling yourself (new people places and things). We all have enough words to communicate the ideas that we need to, yet somehow we lose this power when we’re dealing with ourselves. Need to learn a new word to fit what you need to communicate? Look it up in the dictionary. The dictionary doesn’t have it? Find one that does.

I can’t shake the idea that I’m playing fast and loose with metaphors here and I worry that between the rust, the hour of night and a brand new idea I may have tried to unveil a statue that’s still trapped in its block of marble, but luckily we’re given a fresh day every morning to try it all again if we feel we need to. Vitally though, at every level of our existence we can change the conversation with the right words – the trick is understanding that the dictionary (or perhaps Rosetta stone) not only exists but is available and will help you get where you need to go. It simply requires us to speak many “languages;” that is, know and articulate the information we have not as stuff and a compilation of facts but a dynamic discourse. The conversation is never at an end, we just may run out of words for awhile until we can better understand exactly what we are talking about.

And so to my homies I say Word! To the bartender I say Right on! To my worries I say “Not right now” To the fatigue of a long day I say “Let’s talk about some sleep” Good night.