Week 4: Passion, honestly
I w
rote before about not having any passions, really. And also about not quite trusting passion. I’m realizing that my initial response to this topic, Passion, is being colored by something that happens to me from time to time: I get too literal, I analyze t0o minutely, I lose my sense of humor. And what I further realize about that is this: It’s a response to fear, something I’ve also written about before, a topic of much past & future exploration. Though I’ve not written much about Week 4 of the 8 Week Challenge, it’s been percolating for all this time.
What is relevant here about these revelations (jeez! see what i mean?!?) is that a very real passion of mine is being …… revealed (good goddess almighty!!): I love seeing clearly. And I love blogging about it. And — not incidentally, & not coincidentally — that is the very point of my blog, MindMindful, seeing with clarity, which is “mindfulness”. So, here, making me laugh, & lifting some of the fear, I am doing something I am really becoming passionate about: blogging. I find myself talking about “my blog”, “my blogging fr
iends”, “blogs that are about …..”, trying to get others interested in reading blogs, & writing their own. I hope I’m not being annoying! I hope people will find something that helps them in some way through blogging. Is there a career in being a blogging ambassador??
So, the honest assessment of this passion of mine includes: The ‘fors’ — Connection with others, Wrangling with myself til I see something clearly, The spectacular insights that are sometimes revealed as I write, Expressing things within myself & my life that may be of benefit to others, Time flies by. The ‘againsts’ — Wrangling with myself til I see something clearly, Wrangling with myself til I see something clearly, Wrangling with myself til I see something clearly, Wrangling with myself til I see something clearly.
I
think all of these are experienced by many writers, maybe all who write. And we all know the sense of triumph we feel when we’re able to finally express <>; it feels good!! It feels like We Have DONE Something, right?? Haha, well, by golly we have: We have engaged with that most fearsome of beasts, our selves, & corralled it long enough to find some truth, tiny or tumultuous. I know that I am writing so much because blogging software makes it easy to get the thoughts expressed, & stored, & shared. I have made many discoveries through this process, one being that it is nothing less than a very real journey. And I have discovered just how timid I really always have been. Yet, blogging, the whole system & process, & passion of blogging — because I am looking so closely at my mind & its doings, & so often, seeing what is really there, helps me to be fearless. So, honestly? It’s a passion!
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Very nice note Tristan. Writing makes me feel exactly the same way! Have you read this beautiful note by Terry Tempest Williams on writing – she captures so beautifully all the passion and joy of writing —
I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.
I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white.
I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue.
I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.
I write to honor beauty.
I write to connect with my friend.
I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure.
I write against power and for democracy.
I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.
I write in a solitude born out of community.
I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that make me complacent.
I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain.
I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know.
I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy.
I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt.
I write out of my anger and into my passion.
I write from the stillness of night anticipating — always anticipating.
I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around me.
I write because I believe in words.
I write because it is a dance with paradox.
I write because it is the way I take long walks.
I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness.
I write as ritual.
I write out of my inconsistencies.
I write with the colors of memory.I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as witness to what I imagine.
I write by grace and grit.
I write for the love of ideas.
I write for the surprise of a sentence.
I write with the belief of alchemists.
I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short.
I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by understanding and misunderstanding.
I write past the embarassment of exposure.
I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds — and then I realise it doesn’t matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass.
I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.
Wow. She really captures it! I’ve read a bit of her stuff — one about mosaics, prairiedogs …..
BTW, this was written by me (Shala) not Tristan; I just sometimes guest post. Appreciate your reading!
Hey Shala, sorry for the goof 🙂 Totally enjoyed the reading!
Well, if that’s the worst goof you have today ………….:)
Yay! 🙂