Purging Out the Bad Stuff.

I woke up today thinking about how unhappy I am with my writing from yesterday. I don't like the negativity, I am in fact, trying to move beyond that and steer myself away from that type of mentality...yet at the same time I am aware that I will have bouts of it, that it will not fade away as quickly as I'd like.

Today, I don't feel the need for nihilism at all. Perhaps, I'm a manic-depressed person, perhaps writing about it purged it from my system.

Earlier this morning I woke up to deer hanging out in my backyard. If I lived in the country this wouldn't be so odd, but I live right in town, right by one of the busiest streets. And they just hung out there for hours. People entered and left parking lots. Cars rushed by. Sirens went off. And they just sat there munching grass (or whatever they were eating).

(Checking out the neighborhood)

It reminded me of a war movie I just watched, The Thin Red Line, the director counters all the brutality and killing by mixing in shots of the native animals and plants. Even within all this human conflict other species are around us, chilling, living their lives. Not really giving a flying monkey's tail what anyone else is doing, as long as the "doing" isn't interfering with them.

I'd like to be more like that.

I read this article today on elephant journal, by the amazing Ben Ralston, and in the article there is a video, and in the video the spiritual master Tony Samara says,

"Don't be an addict to your misery, or your seriousness, or to society's expectations."

Of course, in the video, he said it slower and dreamier, but it really hit me. I was like, duh. This is what I've been trying to do for years now. (And though it's easy to say, it's difficult to actually manage.)

I recently have been given the most amazing opportunity to work on a book. And of course, I've been feeling the pressure and the stress of doing something everyone wants to do, but very few people ever actually accomplish (and even fewer people actually succeed at it).

This quote helped me in three ways.

1) I know I won't be able to write a successful book if I think about what other people are going to think of it.

2) I know that if I sit around complaining about how I can't write, well then I won't be able to write.

3) I know if I worry about the book having meaning, or transforming people, and being super serious about making that happen, then no one will be interested...it will come out cheesy and cliche'.

So I just have to do like the animals do and munch on the grass while the world goes on around me.

I just need to sit here and do my thing.

And when my thing is done, then I can worry about whether or not anyone is going to like it.

But for now, it's just for me.