I have some things I want to write about, but I am scared. This fear, this resistance, is very familiar, and I am trying to push past it. Resistance is the term I learned from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which I have sitting on my bedside table to be re-read, but I am resisting that as well. Pressfield writes:
Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be....The awakening artist must be ruthless, not only with herself, but with others....The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them of till our deathbed.
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance.
This second, we can sit down and do our work.
I keep typing sentences about the subject I want to write about, and after staring at them, I delete them. Maybe it is because I am not yet sure of what I want to say; but I think it is also that I am afraid that I might hurt somebody or that someone will think I am revealing too much or that I should let sleeping dogs lie. The Resistance voice in my head is specific, and angry, and I hear it constantly, loudly disapproving and disgusted with me. It's why I have this urge to flee to the beach, or the woods, or anywhere but here, because I am hoping to find some peace and quiet and perhaps be able to find the perfect zen place to sit and write, like all the famous writers and artists and their Montauk cottages and Vermont cabins and linen clothes and freezing cold martinis with olives. But it is all a distraction, the beach and martinis....my voices will still scream at me that I shouldn't write about this painful thing and I shouldn't uncover that ugly scar, and why on god's earth would I want to relive that awful place and christ it wasn't so bad as all that and hell a lot people had it worse and that's not the way it really was and why do I have to be so GODDAMN DRAMATIC about everything???
I know it is not "honoring" the "gift" of creativity, but I say that having the urge to create art and simultaneously being unable to express one's creativity is barely controlled insanity. A virus. A sickness. I eat too much. I drink too much. I spend too much money on distractions. I am on the verge of tears at all times. I am disconnected, disoriented, dismal. So what is worse, pissing off some people who don't really know that much about me, or living a false life filled with longing and obsequious chickenshit pandering?
