Sunday, May 24, 2015

But yes, I think it's natural for a writer to feel the need of leadership.  There is that wanting to express the truth, your own truth, the truth as you see it, your understanding, your version....

So it's natural that it all falls within a realm that is to some extent a competition.  And if you write out your version of the truth, and then you don't get any feedback at all on it, or you get the polite 'good job, however it was late and I'm giving you a D' then of course you're going to lose a bit of respect for the process.  And that's not so good for a student, because he's going to have to pay a high price, maybe for the rest of his life.

If you're a natural born writer, one at a decently young age, well, chances are your leadership is not going to be accepted.  No one is going to care all that much about your version of the truth if it's not that marketable.  And what follows, of course, is a natural form of exile.  Hey, I'm a writer, take it or leave it.  Emily Dickinson.  You leave behind an almost anonymous record.

But all that might be good for you.  Because it leads you even more to wisdom.

And I'm afraid that wisdom is more about finding things within yourself, which is the great thing about yoga of course, than finding it in materialism, or outside yourself, like, you name it, TV, Tindr, going out down on 14th Street thinking you'll meet some friendly un-selfabsorbed people.  What woman would date me anyway...  What a loser I would appear to them.

But I'll tell you, I had to, I had to, stop looking for happiness outside.  Haunted by things that happened twenty five years ago, hey that's life, wouldn't wish it on anyone.  I'd done enough damage to myself, my mind and all that.  I had to really meditate, and accept, and work to get unblocked, and away from the old numbing temptations...

And unfortunately, you can't control any of this.  It's just what happens when you're a writer, when you are, to an extent, the word.

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