Why beginning a new *thing* or re-creating an old *thing* is scary…

Move your hands and your head will follow.

Over the past couple of days I have been relearning the most useful lesson:

Sometimes things are unclear.

I have some suspicions as to why this happens.

Normal people always ask…

Insurance means that all of your risks are considered safe.  You give a portion of the money you earn for a piece of protective paper.  The paper protects you from nothing.  It does not drive defensively, it is not flame-retardant, it will not make you quit smoking or lose weight.  It will not prevent death.

Risk is everywhere; be fearful.

Or not.

You have spent most of your life being a good person, and that is nice.  Me too.  I used to be (ahem) clergy, so I know what it means to be impressively good (at least, as far as anyone else knows).

Every writer fights her internal editor.  My internal editor is Sybil.  He has at least 57 distinct personalities, all of them very upright and well-dressed.  Many of them suffer from male pattern baldness, but that is beside the point.  My IE takes on the look and attitude of real people I know and says to me: “If you write that what will these other upstanding citizens in your head think of you?  They’ll probably think you’re dirty or some sort of scoundrel.  Write something pretty.”

Am I alone here?

I wrote myself a note in the fancy-fancy notebook as a warm-up exercise.  It is to me, but I’ll share it with those of you who are denizens of decency by day and writers by night:

“Within the first book of the bible there is murder, incest, rape, polygamy, drunken debauchery, war, oppression, sodomy, racism, greed, arrogance, and piles of men who are described as having “known his wife.”

There are enough Christian books about some beautiful Amish prude, whose husband is tender, sexless and hard-working, whose beard feels bristly across her makeupless-face.  There are enough Christian paintings of churches in dark vales lit with an interior incandescent bulb providing light for the rest of nature, which must include a deer who is panteth-ing for water.

God is not in the business of redeeming the ideal.  Redeem a rape, something horrible.  Maybe it’s as simple as living to tell about it.  That is a God universally believable.  All of this other perfectionism is an expression of the wild religious ego; a false, impenitent self, hiding behind knit-together fig leaves.  In your work, give God a moment where he must forsake Christ on the cross because of the sin of your characters, otherwise you are not an artist, and probably not a Christian.

Don’t write a Christian story.  Write a good story instead.”

Note to self.

… and many other selfs I know.

This may be local lore.  I haven’t researched it.  We have black squirrels in North East Ohio.  They are smaller, faster and more aggressive than your normal gray or red squirrel.  It is said that these squirrels are the result of an escaped science experiment at Kent State University.  As in,

“Whoops, where did our genetically altered squirrel collection run off to?”

I was hanging some drywall, when I saw this little fellow through the window.

He is a fancy black squirrel, not uncommon, with a long, skinny red tail; this is odd.

Two things came to mind:

1. I am not a black squirrel with a red tail, and that is awesome.  Imagine all of the explanations you’d have to provide at parties and such.
2. Neither are you.

Insert Letterman squirrel joke here.

Gnarly things this week

Last Sunday night I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which proved to be the smartest decision I made all week, all Summer, all of 2010.  If I were the sort of person who passed around MUST-reads, this would be a mustmustmustmust.  A 4-must read.  (Pic is an affiliate link.)

My truck broke down.

I fixed it.  This is an accomplishment since I only have one hand.  Technically I have two hands, but the left one is only useful for tapping keys, waving and head-scratching.
The pick up broke down on the way to register for some classes.  Is this a cosmic sign?  My wife says yes.  She says that difficulty is a sign that you MUST do a thing. This is why we’ve managed to stay married for almost 14 years.

Attended my nephew’s graduation party.

Ate the best sandwich of my entire life!  Thanks for graduating, Rem.

I wrote a thing that I fear.

I wrote a thing that I enjoy.

For money.  Yay, money.  FYI: RoP does not love money, but he does need to make a little to buy bacon.

I read Seth Godin’s post this morning.

Here is a quote from it:

“…you can’t take things at face value, even things that you might be more comfortable leaving unexamined, as truths. Theologians wrestle with this dilemma all the time. How can you study an idea or a trend or a belief system if you also accept it as a universal, unquestionable fact?”

If you ever do any God-type thinking, you should read it too.

If you’ve ever spent any time in the figurative desert, you may have seen me there over the past three weeks.  I am trying not to hate the environment in the desert.  A friend of mine just asked me a cacophony of “why” questions.  I told him, “I don’t know and neither does anyone else.  Chill, bro, and try to smile a little.”  That’s the way of the desert.  Have a cool beverage.  No one knows the answer to the “why’s”.  Smile.

One more week of stay-at-home-dadding until I can be p-p-p-productive in the real world.

Coaching a baseball game later in the morning.

Life is beautiful.

I got a gig writing some things for a group of people who need some things written.  So far, my work is good, I think.  My ego says, “Add the words ‘I think,’ because what if it turns out to be not-so-great.”

Ah, the ego.  It will keep you so very safe and completely average.

The leader of the group asked if I could write some material about God and the creative individual.  Now, I know these people; many are friends, all are acquaintances.  Everyone of these people are wired to make stuff.  Painters, dancers, writers, clay-throwers (I’m sure there is a real word for this, I’m just too busy to look it up), musicians, jewelers, play-writes, movie-makers – interesting people.

Even amongst like-wired individuals I toy around with phoning-in something vanilla, because I want to be accepted.

I minimize risks in my work.  Ego wants to be accepted.  That is the ego’s job.

The ego says, “Look at me, I’m ***awesome.”  Then, “Okay, stop looking that closely; I’m not really awesome.  Didn’t you see the *** before the word awesome?  The *** means – I am barely noteworthy, but good enough to hang around with; I fit in.  I fit in.  I fit in.  Hire me, just don’t expect remarkable!”

Then the ego says, “You should probably write a blog about what you’re doing to validate yourself today.”  So I listen to ego.

My hope is that maybe this post will help someone else overcome their ego-driven fears today.  If so, you’re welcome.  It’s what I do.

In case you’re wondering about the “God-business” in all of this: God doesn’t give a crap about your fancy, disguising ego.  He wishes you’d loose it.  He is rather fond of your Self though, the honest stuff.  He mentioned that.

Also, in case you’re wondering, my ego sure didn’t intend to include any God-business in today’s post.  Ego is prone to be non-offensive and wildly inclusive.  See what a devil it is?

(If you comment it will probably go right to my ego, but feel free, if you must.)

Go do what you must do today without your apologizing ego getting in the way.  As for me, I am off to make a litany of phone calls.  I suspect my ego will tell a bunch of white-lies the whole freaking time.  I hate that.