I am asking myself why it is that I want something. I guess it boils down to a few things. Not just assuage the desire I have to write, but to honor the gifts given to me. Pretty much my approach has been to write as little as possible, or as effectively for myself, so that I no longer think about writing. Then I can "get on" with the rest of my day (life) and be productive. I understand that writing is like not going to go away now. And I also see that, well, many of my personal insights and professional accomplishments have been linked to writing. I got into a great college on my work, yes, but also a very compelling essay, and I think that journaling has been okay, well I would say journaling and planning has been very beneficial to me, and that is about all I can say. Professional accomplishments, well, I gain insight through writing and that helps me. So maybe what I will say is that writing is how I process things. Like some people process by audio, some video, and some by interactivity or interactions.
So then, what I want to do is help people who are like me, and I guess that would be writers. And I would narrow that down to writers who have also worked hard.
People with one foot in the arts and one in the sciences? No. Why? Because I do not want to be a split person like that, well maybe that is really what a whole person is.
Writing for writing's sake is difficult for me. That path seems like a waste of time, I feel like I want to be 'doing' something, so that is why I link to a goal.
This is similar to the question I had in college, which I never really satisfied: what should you do? and how? I guess faced with limitless opportunity, how do you choose?
Sitting and wringing your hands seems like a huge waste of time. Getting clarity, seems important, but also like the most roundabout straightforward way. It feels like you want to be doing something. The mechanics of accomplishing many things are fairly laid out, even for some things that seem complicated, they are available. The whole question is what path do you want to walk (or run). Perhaps we in the United States are in the second or third attempt at having a large portion of the population focused on self-actualization. The last few times we have chosen consumerism instead. It took those 'enlightened' countries in Europe a long time to get figured out that consumerism was not going to be sustainable in-country, so instead opt for limits on production and work. As a sidenote, these European countries with limits on work production do not have 'everything' figured out and they are not a 'perfect' system, but neither is our current system in the US. In the US, we have been able to export a lot of our production through culture.
Nevertheless, here I am faced with the question that I can do pretty much whatever I want. Well, no, I cannot for example…well…there are many things I cannot do. There are of course some limits, so that helps limit some choices. But at the core, I guess, I think that there are not many limits. I've experienced the ability to do a lot of things. So even within the limits that do exist, there are a lot of other things that you can still do.
Some people approach this by saying yes to all the opportunities they can until you cannot. It takes a skill to be able to recognize when you have reached this limit. Then, I guess, you could start using that as a way to decide what it is that you want to do. Again, though, I am forcing the option into the future. Do whatever comes my way. Well you can go out and get things, you can also figure, you need to be able to recognize when the 'right' thing comes along. Maybe there are no 'right' things. Maybe you just need to continue on the path.
When you get in a loop like this, get out at stack of notecards and start writing. One idea or one phrase on each one. Start asking yourself questions and writing out all the responses. One answer or on phrase on each one. Try to make each card Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive.