A LIGHT- HEARTED LOOK AT A HEAVY SUBJECT

 

 

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Theodore Roosevelt

1)

“What if I will never be the next Nostradamus?

What if my ‘aha moment’ isn’t going to happen today?

What if I have nothing life- changing to contribute?

What if I totally miss predicting the impending apocalypse?

What if what I am inspired to say angers or offends:

The Religious Right/ Left/ Centrists

Baptists

Catholics

Jews

Universalists

Atheists

Zen Buddhists

Muslims

My family?”

 

“What if I inadvertently leave a group out? “

“What if one group thinks I am writing about them, when I’m not?”

 

“What if people come to my house with pitchforks and blazing torches, like the scene from Frankenstein?”

“What if no one says or does anything, because they don’t care or simply do not know that I exist? “

“Can I do what I feel called to do if no one knows I am there?”

 

Have existential meltdown. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it…

 

 

2) GET OUT OF BED.

 

3) Beg/ bargain with God about all aspects of number one.

 

 

4) Drink coffee for inspiration.

 

5) Wait for mountaintop experience to write about.

 

6) Go to job that supports writing habit, enjoying the peace that accompanies actual completion of tasks. While working, have hundreds of inspiring writing ideas, just nothing relevant to this particular writing deadline. Forget most of them before writing them down. Write down the remainder on To Do list stretching until the year 2050.

 

 

7) Resort to exercise or a nap to clear the mental pathways.

 

 

 

8) Receive desired inspiration/ word from God while engaged in inconvenient activities such as showering, using the other part of the bathroom, or pretending to pay attention in the middle of a conversation.

 

9) Let the words out.

10) Thank God for doing the real work.

 

11) Collapse in heap.

 

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Hans Hofmann