Inspiration. Words.

I want to write not for the sake of reaching the next period of the next sentence, but to meander and explore and craft, filling in the punctuations and blanks after the fact.

I want to write because it forces me to face myself and see my person laid out before me in a form digestible by another human being.

I want to write because I want to be.

But more than that, I want to write because I want to become.

Passion. Project.

I read an article in the Times today about the whole concept of "following your passion." The secret formula to success in the States has always appeared to be as simple as pursuing one's passion - and "the money/the rest will follow."

To be perfectly honest, I've long subscribed to this mentality - I mean, quite possibly every other entry in my journals has been about trying to find and embrace my passions with the hope of actually carving out a viable, fulfilling career path from them.

Simple, no?

What the article argued, however, is that sometimes (read: most times) the formula is not so easy. And not in a practical, logical kind of way either, as in making the decision to leave a full-time job to free fall into the uncertain abyss of "entrepreneurship," "freelancing," or that catch-all Generation Y phrase, "discovering myself."

No, the kind of difficulty many people encounter with this kind of mentality is more basic than that. They simply don't know what their passions are.

Because truth be told, not everyone springs from the womb knowing what they've been put on God's Green Earth to do.

Most people struggle to figure out what they truly want, and that's okay. It felt oddly relieving to read the piece, knowing that my uncertainties as of late haven't had anything (well, not as much anyway) to do with being able to recognize the next steps.

They've come from realizing that those steps aren't even yet formed because, well, how can you select building blocks if you don't have a rough sketch of what you're building? We're talking the difference between constructing a bridge and a skyscraper, really.

I've always thought that I've led such a blessed live. And I do. A loving family, great friends, and the relative freedom to live on my own terms. I'm working as an editor in New York City, getting paid to write, the thing I love.

The thing I love.

It sounds like living the dream - when in reality I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm just snoozing.

The author's argument was that for those who don't have a defined passion in life and feel frustrated that they're somehow missing something by not having an established goal, sometimes the best thing is to build skills and grow passion that way, the same way you might coax an avocado seed to sprout.

Sure, I'm passionate about writing, but it's always been more about storytelling, the unsolicited thoughts that turn into words, phrases, sentences, stories as they travel from my noggin down to my fingertips.

It's always been about the quality of thought, the satisfaction of learning and doing and being a part of the process while maintaining enough of a distance to be objective. Be a perpetual observer, eavesdropper, dreamer.

Romanticized, maybe, but this is what writing has always been to me, and what - by extension - journalism has always been to me.

Being able to construct sentences and transfer my emotions to another human being without having ever met them, know how they look or think or feel - that is powerful. That has been what I pride myself in being able to do as a writer.

So now the real question is this: how/where can I develop my skill set to become the kind of writer that can claim writing as my passion? I believe it's a talent that can (and will) be learned and I'm more sure now more than ever (just after writing this, oddly enough) that I know what I need to do to take that next step.

Then, maybe, the rest will follow.

Beautiful writing

From Thought Catalog, on How You Know:

You want to travel with them. You want to see what they’re like going
through airport security, on planes, in strange countries. You want to
meet their families and charm them to pieces. You want to nestle into
their childhood beds and look around in the dark at all their old
posters. You want to see all the embarrassing photos of them with braces
and socks pulled up mid-calf. You want to hear all the stories about
their drunken nights under the bleachers and their best friend’s jokes.
You want to read all their journals, see how they took notes in high
school. Did they use pen or pencil? What color highlighter? You want to
work with them, just to see them work. You want to go out with them. You
want to make out with them in the bathroom. You always want to touch
them; you want them to always want to touch you.

You find reasons to disentangle yourself from them; it’s only going
to hurt later, you can tell already. You stay up way past your bedtime
for them. You look at the clock and know their schedule. You neglect
other people and other things, and beat yourself up about it. But it’s
like they have a hold of your hands and your voice, and you don’t mind.
It’s like you’re trapped in an hourglass; you know your lungs might fill
with sand, but there’s something sensual and comforting about the
grains sliding down glass walls and pooling around your ankles, your
knees, your waist.

You like things about their appearance that the rest of the world may
cringe at and call strange, less than perfect. Their broken, reshaped
noses; their little teeth or the gaps in between them; the way they pull
their hair; their narrow hips; their wide shoulders; the depth of their
pores. You can laugh when funny things happen in bed. You usually want
to be in bed with them.

You think they’re smarter, better, friendlier, fitter, happier, more
productive than you are. You strive to be as much as they are, as good
as they are. You try to cheat and figure out what it is they’re going to
teach you, if they’re going to fall from grace, if you’re going to play
a part for them that you never thought you’d play before. You try and
pull patterns and threads of meaning from the conversation or the way
they looked at you the first time you met; what they did, what they
offered. An apple stolen from the bar. Notes from a guitar. Pitchers of
free beer. Pieces of bark with writing on them.

You cherish snippets of them; paste them up in your memories like old
faded scrapbooks clutched to chests for generations. Their skin glows
black and white in your head. They star in the little short films of
your life that sneak up on you when you’re not looking. Like the walk to
the South End for dinner on a quiet corner. The feel of the sun beating
down on you both at an outdoor concert. The way they ordered wine on
your first date. The slow swing of a hammock near a lake. The back seat
of their car.

You can see yourself with them in the future you can’t quite see. You
build apartments outfitted with all the right kitchen supplies and the
perfect bed with two nightstands, each piled with books and magazines.
You wait for them patiently while they chase their dreams; they wait for
you patiently as you chase yours. You sit in bed eating dinner late at
night, drinking tea and wine and whiskey as you tell each other all
about the chasing. You create adopted dogs and cats; you have awkward
conversations about money; you put up with each other’s crap. You see
what they look like standing at the end of a candle-lit aisle in your
grassy front yard and wonder if you’ll make it to the other end to meet
them or if they’ll just end up in the scrapbook clutched to your chest
or flickering on the screen in your brain.

Detachment

Just screened an incredibly gritty film "Detachment," with Adrien Brody and Christina Hendricks, for a piece I'm writing for the Daily News. A few quotes jumped out and struck a chord with me.

"To deliberately believe in lies while knowing they're false - that's doublespeak." This is also why we read, to cultivate our own beliefs.

"It is easy to be callous. It takes courage and character to care."

"Do you see me?"

"Some days, we have limited space for others."

"No one wants to think about the struggle it takes to be somebody."

"We guide our young so they don't become insignificant."

Run run run

Every time I attempt to sit down and properly write a post about the why's and the what's and the how's of running, I get stumped.

But the other day, following an especially exhilarating nighttime tromp through my neighborhood park, the glow of distant streetlights and the moon's reflection off the lake guiding my way, I swore I could have kept running for miles.

There's something completely freeing about feeling the pavement under my feet, bounding and reconnecting and supporting and pushing as I gain momentum and almost free-fall into the darkness in front of me.

I feel like I'm cutting through the enveloping darkness, a cold wall of obstacle and fear and what if's as I push past the dull pain in my thighs, the gasping breaths in my chest, the blur of the broken lines on the road as I press on.

Beat.

Running is like a kind of therapy for the soul, and sometimes I will myself to run at a high speed so that I might break through the sound barrier into another realm, one of complete stillness and meditation.

It's a kind of mental separation, trying to pull apart the pain of the external from the calm of the internal. The faster I go, the more blindly I hurtle into the darkness, the quieter my mind becomes and the clearer I can think.

I distract my mind with a full awareness of my body, of my joints, of each muscle as I move forward, onward, forward, onward, right foot, left foot, right foot, left.

Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Out.

Catch my breath and bob my head to the beat of my own being learning its rhythm for the first time. In the darkness of a night run, there's no such thing as stopping, of stagnation, of rest.

At night, my mind comes alive so the body does also.

Running is not an escape. Running is an embrace. In the undeniably unique boom boom swish boom beat of each runner's pace, breath, pace, there is a release, an embrace, a release.

Pushing off the ground and touching down just to try again so that I might become a part of the night.

Running.

Beat.

Global soul

I've been reading this book "The Global Soul" by Pico Iyer, and it's causing me to really pause and ponder a bit in a way I haven't had the opportunity to in a while - most especially its remarks on the concept of "belonging" and "community."

"... the fact remains that humans have never lived with quite this kind of mobility and uprootedness before (indeed, the questions themselves may be the closest thing we have to home: we live in the uncertainties we carry round with us). A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community.

Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that's coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging.

The Global Soul may see so many sides of every question that he never settles on a firm conviction; he may grow so used to giving back a different self according to his environment that he loses sight of who he is when nobody's around. Even the most basic questions have to be answered by him alone, and when, on the planes where he may make his home, the cabin attendant passes down the aisle with disembarkation forms, it may be difficult for him to fill in any of the boxes: "Home address," "Citizenship," "Purpose of Visit," even "Marital Status."

What is it like to find community? The term has come to mean a kind of literal suburban white picket fence and PTA-filled society, or a decidedly alternative, tightly knit group of exclusive insiders. See: The fashion community. See also: The running community.

Everyone's constantly in search of finding their place of belonging, of hitting upon a kind of assembly of kindred spirits who will act as an external reassurance that there are others out there who think, breathe, act, look, just. Like. Them.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with seeking community, of trying to build a family from the hodgepodge of acquaintances, errant family members and coworkers that inevitably becomes your "in crowd" upon graduating from college and moving across the country to begin a new career and a new life away from your old "community."

The problem that arises, however, is that by wanting a community, we are wishing for exclusivity. We are by definition excluding people who don't fit the criteria of our given "group." Because without exclusivity, there is no community. If you don't define your community clearly, and leave it open to everyone - which is the PC way of looking at things - then you are not creating a community, nay, not even a global community - you are creating a space.

I got to thinking a lot about the concept of community recently after an hours-long conversation with a friend about the idea of religion. Not religion itself, per se, but the idea of it.

The principles that Christianity teaches - and let's hope I don't overgeneralize or get this wrong here - revolve around the idea that there are the Chosen Ones (those who subscribe to Christian views) and there are, by default, the non-Chosen Ones. You are in, or you are out. It's pretty straightforward in that sense.

But, I asked, why is it not enough to have a personal relationship with God, with a higher being, and be a good person? Why is the community aspect, the organized religion aspect of it, necessary? It sounds blasphemous to even question this, but I don't mean it in a disrespectful way. I mean it in a human, questioning, wondering kind of way.

He responded that by creating a community, a church, there is a physical divide between those who are saved and those who are not. And then it becomes very clear that those who ARE saved are tasked with saving those who are not. Being on the ship, in the actual physical ship, means that you have the resources to reach out and pull someone to safety.

Fair. But, what of the politics that come with organized religion? The human aspects of deciding who is a good pastor and who isn't, of who to hang out with while at church, of the dramas that taint the message of God that is delivered every Sunday? That is a community, to be sure - as communities are not always peaceful - but it is also just community for the sake of community without deeper examination, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that.

When church or any community becomes more about the individuals - what she was wearing that Sunday, or who likes whom, or which mother cooked the best dish - than the greater cause, that community is lost.

So maybe the answer is to strive for a more solid sense of self first. Settle the internal before striving for external affirmation.

I guess the only problem with that, though, is that so much of your self develops as a result of outward influences, and to try to wait until one is completely rooted in his or her self would mean - never interacting, never living.

Thus is the dilemma of the Global Soul, of journeying, of belonging.

Day, shift

How do you describe what it feels like to rejoin society, to reconstruct what was formerly habit into routine into lifestyle? At times I feel like I haven't left the conventional daytime work hours at all, but at the same time - so much has happened in this past year that it's impossible to discount the memories.

It's kinda like this. Wandering through unfamiliar terrain in the pitch dark is terrifying when you can't identify what's around you. Your brain panics and it feels as though your imagination will run wild for miles into a million different directions. And you're literally just stuck.

It's hard to even tentatively move any which way because you don't know what the rules of this place that you occupy are - what if living in that space defies some law of physics? What do you reach toward when you're without direction?

Having an odd schedule, I often felt a mild variation of that. Working on a different timetable from the rest of the world was like being in the dark, with barely recognizable figures, reaching out into pitch black spaces. It's difficult to gauge where you are relative to everything, get a sense of rank or placement, when you are bound to one spot.

A starting point.

From there on, however, wherever you move to, it'd still be uncertain. But at least you'd know that it was okay to move. It didn't matter which way, but you could...MOVE.

This past year, whether of my own volition or because it really was the case, I've felt caught. Stuck. Immobile. And frustrated because I questioned whether I was the one who was creating and contributing to my own mental block without realizing it.

The thing is, if you can define the root of a problem as either internal or external, you can do something about it. But if you balance on the precipice of "it's you, not me," then you don't know the rules. And then you don't know how to react.

People say to react to how you feel. I say it's more important to feel how you act.

Really feel it.

Absorb all the consequences of what it means and why you did it and what will propel you to do it again.

This past year has truly been unlike anything I have ever been through before. I was at times lonely, frustrated, self-conscious, prideful, stubborn, jealous, possessive. I think I saw myself at some pretty low points, but I also think that forced me to venture out and feel my way back toward a semblance of a self-created path.

And though I'm treading lightly, at least I'm moving.

How bout them directions?

Just last year, a few weeks into my new schedule at the time, I wrote about how it felt to be living in opposition to the mainstream, to have my own bubble of New York life. And rereading it now, the sentences still ring true.

Solitude will be my best learning tool.

It's easy to get lost in New York City. But last night/this morning, as I glanced over my shoulder at bedroom lights flickering on in high rises as I crossed the bridge, people starting the day just as I was about to end it, I felt found. Their dawn is my dusk. My reality is only, really, in my head. And I was very much aware that I was coming home -- on my own terms.

Here's to personal realities, and redefining them over and over again.