It’s astounding, time is fleeting

So, lately, I have been feeling really inadequate and under-accomplished. I’ve been reading/exploring a lot about the creative arts, and doubts have started to creep into my mind about how I’m not really an artist, or I’m not creative because I’m not as skilled at being creative (designing cool videos, writing stories or songs, or making cool sets for church, for example) as people who I think of as being creative. I know I should be thankful for the creative writing gifts that I have, but since I don’t do them full-time, and they’re not as glamorous or exciting as the stuff I mentioned above, I feel like my gifts aren’t really that great.  The books and podcasts I’ve been perusing are mainly for people whose whole job is being creative somehow, which I would love to do for a living. The doubts creep into my mind that maybe I’m not good enough to get paid for being creative, which probably isn’t true. They have also made me start thinking about how I want to be an authority on something like the people whose books and podcasts I’m ingesting. I don’t necessarily want fame, but I want to have a book or a website or a blog, or whatever, that I become known for, and people want to interview me or recommend me or quote me. (I guess that is kind of fame.) I want to be known for something that’s the fruit of my creative talents. I definitely like learning from other people, but at some point I want to be a person that people learn from too…

I’ve also been feeling a bit lost in theory, and confused about how to apply it. I’ve been learning a lot in this Bible study I’ve been doing this summer, and I’ve definitely grown a lot. But one of the issues it’s been talking about is how we need to be more intimate with people, and share more of ourselves with them. This is something I really need to work on. But how do I do that? I know I need to be more intimate and draw closer to people, but I have no idea how to actually apply what I’ve learned and start doihow I’m ng that. This issue also applies to the creative arts books I’ve been reading–they’re all about taking action, and not letting yourself get distracted or give in to resistance. But I don’t know how to really apply that, since I just kind of do my creative thing whenever the muse strikes me.

Sorry if this is a little deep and long-winded. I just needed to get these things off my chest…

I just fell in love and I couldn’t help myself

Sorry for not posting any of my writings this week. It’s still not the right time for the beginning of the story that I wrote, and I haven’t really written much creatively this week.

So, here are a few more quotes from “The War of Art” that I really like…with good news following them : )

“Resistance is fear.  But Resistance is too cunning to show itself naked in this form. Why? Because if Resistance lets us see clearly that our own fear is preventing us from doing our work, we may feel shame at this. And shame may drive us to act in the face of fear.”

“Resistance can be beaten. If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.”

‘The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist. He knows that once he gets out into the action, his fear will recede and he’ll be okay.”

“The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.”

“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it. It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God. Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

And…the good news is: I finally talked to the hot gym guy! He was at the front desk when I was leaving tonight, and said something like “Have a good night”, and I said, “Thanks.” Not earth-shattering, but definitely exciting for me. I’ve been in a really good mood since then, and I even kind of fist-pumped in excitement as I was walking to my car (not so he could see me, of course). And I sang all the way home and in the shower, too. Who knows what might happen next? : )

I’ve been trying to get you to see things all my way

I actually wrote the beginning to a story today, but it’s kind of deep and I’m tired and don’t really feel like being deep tonight.

So, here are some quotes from a book I just started called “The War of Art”, which is basically about how to identify, defeat, and unlock the inner barries to creativity. It’s really good so far, and I highly recommend it if you’re creative at all.

“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 off 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 our tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.”

“As artists and professionals it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, magazines, TV, and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle. We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of B.S., Inc., but only by doing our work.”

“The paradox seems to be, as Socrates  demonstrated so long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.”

“Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself,  ‘Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?’ chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”

You’re just too good, too good for a song

Sorry for not posting for a while, everyone. I have been so, so busy this week, and then tired, and sick too.  I was at church all night on Sunday, had work/homeless ministry all of Monday, had a ton of errands on Tuesday, had work and an STC meeting all day Wednesday, had lots more errands and Bible study on Thursday, work and homeless ministry dinner/meeting yesterday, and then finally have been able to relax today, somewhat.

So for those of you who don’t want to hear about the hot gym guy, you might want to tune out now. I finally saw him today again, after not seeing him since Tuesday. I looked OK, and I was feeling somewhat confident. Then, I got on the stationary bike, and all hell started breaking loose (that may be a bit dramatic). I started sweating insanely bad (which led to some embarrassing stains that we don’t need to describe), and then my left contact started making my eye get tired and weird, and then I realized I never put mascara on today, and my iPhone kept slipping out of my shirt. It was just not a good scene–I could definitely tell God was trying to humble me. Things got a little better for the rest of the workout, except when he was about to walk nearby where I was working out with some people he was showing around, I freaked out and walked over to another machine. I don’t know why it makes me so nervous when he gets close to me. Then, I was trying to leave by 4:30, because he works till 4:30 on Saturdays and I wanted to see him walk to his car, so I could know what his car looked like to know if he was working in the future. (I wasn’t going to follow him home or anything; that would just be creepy.) So I got out of the gym at just a few minutes after 4:30, and he was already gone and nowhere in sight. Just my luck…

So now, I’m back at home, deciding if I just want to introvert out and stay home the rest of the night, or go see “Drive” (a new movie with hot Ryan Gosling and Christina Hendricks, who I like from “Mad Men”.) We shall see what happens…

We hung like space stations and rocket ships, dreamed like we were things in the sky

So this will be pretty brief, because, like what happens all Sunday nights, I did not get a lot of sleep last night, and am falling asleep tonight.

As some of you may know, the past month or so, I have started volunteering with our church’s homeless ministry. The past few weeks, I have realized again how much I empathize with people, but how I am so bad at expressing it. The past few years, I have noticed that I really, really easily take on the emotions of the people I am talking to, or reading about, or watching in movies, or come in any kind of contact with. I don’t know if it’s me being a highly sensitive person, or if it’s something else, but it happens to me all the time. I just feel so sorry for people and what they’re going through, and hopefully I at least express that in my face, because I can’t vocalize any of my empathy. I get kind of frustrated, because I want to tell people “I’m so sorry” or “I’ll be praying for you” or something like that, but it just doesn’t come out. I do pray for them too, so at least God knows that I care about them.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of for tonight…

It never rains in Southern California

An appropriate title considering the awful heat/humidity wave we are going through right now. I already have a higher body temperature, and so the heat makes me very irritable!

Anyways, here are two things I wrote today. One is a short story I wrote in writers’ group, where we were given an object to write about. The rock in the story is the object I was given. The second is just a poem I felt like writing.

Story:

It was just a round rock, just a sort of shiny, obsidian-like rock, with tan streaks zigzagging across it without rhyme or reason. Anyone else probably wouldn’t have given it a second or even first look, would have left it to wash away in anonymity with the infinite grains of sand and all its other rock relatives into the receding, grasping, crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. They certainly wouldn’t have brought it home, or carried it everywhere in their purse, or clutched it in their clenched hand to feel its edges, its smooth sensation of security. But Felicia did all of that. You see, her mother had found it on her last day of life. Her mother hadn’t gone anywhere beyond her hospital bed in the ICU in months, due to the cancer that had started in her lungs and then spread to the rest of her body far too rapidly. “Just one last time–I just want to see the ocean one last time before I leave this earth,” her mother had gasped, and so the dying mother and her only daughter had driven the long, windy road out to the coast. They didn’t go far–her mother just wanted to touch the water–so they had very slowly made their way toward the powerful yet calming sea. Her mother smiled as the water rushed in and out over her bare feet. “Now, I am complete,” she said, after a few minutes. Turning around, she stumbled and nearly fell on that ordinary-looking rock. Felicia helped her up and they headed to the car. Felicia didn’t notice that her mother had slipped the rock into her pocket. The next morning, when Felicia went to the ICU to see her mother’s body that would no longer breathe the breath of life,  she found the rock in her mother’s striped pajama pants. Taking it out, Felicia vowed to keep it forever near her.

Poem:

Runing,

She keeps running away

Incapable of drawing close to anyone,

Lest they break her heart

Once again.

Yet she keeps longing,

Wishing they were still beside her

To comfort her, reach out to her,

Receive her words

She keeps reaching out her hand,

Longing for their familiar touch

Desperately clutching to the strings that bind her to them

Even though those strings are dangling, snapped, now frayed and dragging on the ground.

We are the dark horses

All I have for you guys today is this passage I really like from The Beautiful and Damned by one of my favorite authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“After the sureties of youth there sets in a period of intense and intolerable complexity. With the soda-jerker this period is so short as to be almost negligible. Men higher in the scale hold out longer in the attempt to preserve the ultimate niceties of relationship, to retain “impractical” ideas of integrity. But by the late twenties the business has grown too intricate, and what has hitherto been imminent and confusing has become gradually remote and dim. Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape , softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future–so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. It is left to the few to be persistently concerned with the nuances with relationships–and even this few only in certain hours especially set aside for the task.”

We’re the kids that belong to the night

Thank you all, first of all, for your prayers today. I have just been going like crazy since Sunday socially and working, and not sleeping well, and today at work, I was just exhausted of everything. I just wanted to go home and sleep all day and not be around people and not do anything at all. And then, this lady that I guess is kind of my supervisor kept picking at everything I did. I am definitely not above criticism, but every email that I sent out today (at least five or six) she would email or IM me back saying, “No, you’re supposed to do it this way” and “You were missing this,” and I just wanted to scream. But after lunch, and people starting to pray for me, I gradually started to get less irritable and in a better mood, and now, I’m fine. I am looking forward to sleeping a lot tonight, though.

So yesterday I was at a funeral that lasted pretty much all day, and I had sunblock, but wasn’t expecting to be outside for as long as I was, and so I got sunburned along the back of my neck and right below, and the sides of my arms, and the front of my neck and below that. I hate sunburns so much, and it is so painful, especially the one on the back of my neck. It stings every time I put on or take off a shirt, or any time I am sweating at the gym and wipe the sweat off right there. I really wish I had inherited at least a little more of the Armenian skin color…

Lastly, I have these two sets of lines in my head, and I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet. They are the following:

“Ponderously considering her own mortality” (this will probably be part of a poem at some point)

“She wasn’t one of those people who could seamlessly flit from scene to scene. Instead, she lingered, absorbing each place into her consciousness till it took her over and then quiescently traveling on. ” (this is kind of about me and will be in a story sometime, maybe)