alright! i’m doing it! writing on a saturday like i said i would!
i recently listened to the audiobook of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert at the suggestion of my sister, who is a musician and a generally artsy and creative individual. i admire her for many reasons, but chief among them is her resolve to dedicate her life to her art no matter what. i find that to be one of the bravest decisions one can make in the face of our relentlessly capitalistic society.
she suggested i read Big Magic after i explained to her how scared i am to even try writing anything beyond personal essays because i am so scared of getting things wrong, and i know that if i write about my own experience, i can’t be wrong. the beginning of the book is about overcoming (or living with, really) fear, and my sister, who does not have that problem, thought it may be useful to me. i do have that problem. like, majorly. like, paralyzingly, if that’s a word.
people often point to my decision to pick up and move to a new city where i only knew one (1) person as proof of my bravery. yes, that was brave, but i was 24 and so miserable that i couldn’t imagine continuing my life the way it was. changing everything felt like the only option. it felt like i had nothing to lose.
these days, i really like my life! i have a lot to lose! and that has made me so, so fearful.
isn’t that counterintuitive? i feel like we often tell ourselves, ok, when i reach some point of stability, i will do The Scary Thing. i will challenge myself then. however, i think in reality, humans are obsessed with stability and never want to disturb it once they have it. or at least i think that is what is going on with me. i won’t generalize, because then i could be wrong and we hate that 🙁
so what is this Scary Thing i’m not doing? i’m not really sure, but then again i don’t know if the reason i’m unsure is because i genuinely don’t know or if i’m afraid to admit it. i think it’s to lean into the fact that i enjoy writing and want to do it more often and in more ways so i get better at it. to make writing into a ~creative practice~, you might say.
even though i literally bought a web domain so that i had a place to post my writing, it’s still hard for me to admit to people that i like to write. i think in my head, writing is just for Writers. like people who write for a living. people with english degrees. people who started doing nanowrimo in middle school and never stopped. people who read more than, like, two books a year (ugh this is a big one for me. how can i expect to be a good writer if i can’t get myself to read a damn book?????).
but i guess the truth is that if i’m writing this then i’m already a ~*WRiTeR*~ and actually i have been published (trying really hard not to add that i think where i was published will publish anything so that doesn’t really count but oops guess i just did!)
anyway, i have many more thoughts about Big Magic that i’m sure i will get to. for now, i’ll just end with that little imposter-syndrome-spiral because i need to sleep.
Hmm so much of this resonates. I feel like much of my bravery was due to having nothing to lose. Like, hell why not do this thing if the alternative is to continue to crumble. Also, this piece about being a writer- same same same. Like I like to write stuff and I write- why doesn’t that constituent being a writer?