I wake up to the concept that I have to start all over
again, struggling to repeat whatever successes I’ve had yesterday while
avoiding the pitfalls.
Even writing these words is a chore, a retuning of this
engine I had almost purring.
It’s a never ending battle to prove I can do as well today
as I have in the past, if not better.
At college, some kids cling to one or two pieces of work
they consider masterpieces, fearful that someone else might steal their ideas.
They keep asking about copyrights and other protections, and
wonder why I do not care too much about someone stealing what I do, and I tell
them because whoever steals from me obviously doesn’t have an original idea in
the first place and knows quality when they see it.
But doesn’t scare you to think they’re taking credit for
what you do, they ask?
Yes, it would hurt, if anyone actually did it.
But what pride is there in what they do as compared to what
I do?
They are not me. My job is to make sure I can keep doing
what I do, and repeat or do better, and in the end, if someone steals one
thing, I will have hundreds of other pieces to replace what they took, and that
poor fool has nothing.
The big fear is not being able to repeat it, and get stuck
the way some artist are, with having only one thing to say in their lives, and
once said, they have nothing to look ahead to.
I struggle with it all for a number of reasons. I never
write anything that I don’t think is good or can be if I work on it hard
enough. Sometimes I just put one word after another with the hopes that some
future self (who has achieved what I have not yet achieved) can convert it into
something worth reading.
I am a better writer today than I was a year ago, and if I’m
not better a year from now or ten years, then it is my fault.
Another problem, of course, is the fact that I’m more
interested in writing than publishing, and this leads to the inevitable
frustration of not being able to make a living at what I love most.
Like everybody, I ache for recognition, to see what I do
appreciated, and to perhaps earn a little fame – you know that guy campuses
invite to come speak to their students, or gets on some radio talk show to
explain what they meant when they wrote this or that, or to hobnob in some literary
or even jet set social elite (only I would likely get myself thrown out for
saying the wrong thing or telling one of those snobs what I really think of
them).
But in the end, I ache to do something so well, to have some
piece so well written, that it will out live me, fame or no fame, something
that some future life soul I might come back as will gravitate towards, somehow
knowing that the person in this life time is that person in a new life. I
believe in reincarnation, and that we come back and are drawn to those in the
past we have known or were us – I would like to think that I was Mark Twain in
a prior life, rather than Shakespeare or James Joyce.
So I place word after word with the hope that it adds up to
something, and that just by doing it, I get better at it, and like bicycle
riding, I can pick up where I left off (or at least without too much loss) the
next day so as to travel a little farther, making progress across this
landscape we call art, and to arrive somewhere I want to reach, even if I’m not
quite clear as to how to get there from here.
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