Legacy of the Gifted
Most genius or gifted artists seem to be bipolar or at least mentally disturbed in someway. Many of these “disturbed” artists eventually commit suicide. Sylvia Path tried committing suicide more than once before finally succeeding in 1963 by ingesting sleeping pills and gassing herself in the kitchen oven. Ernest Hemingway killed himself just two days after leaving the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I find myself worrying about my own mental state and diagnosis. I also wonder about own end. I wonder if I will take a similar path.
PD is a wannabe writer and at my most honest I know that I have no respect for him as a writer. I haven’t as of yet, acquired any respect for myself as a true writer. I feel as though I’m not well read enough or had enough formal education to ever consider myself a writer or a novelist. This being so I am deathly afraid of producing bad or even worse mediocre writing. In deciding that I need to write for my own mental health, I am finding that I may have found what I have always been looking for…the ability to support myself doing something that not only is easy for me, but that I also have a love for. The realization that this
something that I have always been looking for, has actually always been with me is not lost on me either. I say that writing comes easy for me, but bear in mind that I
think good writing comes easy for me. That has yet to be determined, and it is a terrifying thought that I may find out the truth behind this hope. I may be foolish as well as incorrect but that is the risk I have to take in order to find my light, my one chance at happiness and fulfillment. Number 19 says, “Surviving and living your life successfully requires courage. The goals and dreams you’re seeking require courage and risk taking. Learn from the turtle, it only makes progress when it sticks out it’s neck.”
Realization of a Slacker
I have risen. Yeah I know you thought I had fell into the great abyss, but no...I am still alive and kicking. And more committed to putting something, anything, in this very space everyday. I suddenly realized I am much more adjusted as an individual when I can tell total strangers of the goings on in my pathetic little life. I have also started to write my great American novel. Actually, its more of a memoir. Actually its more like an autobiography. Well it's pretty damned close to the pathetic little life that I write about here. It is helping to keep me sane. I will publish small sections here as I feel they are worthy of inspection. I am determined to finish this work if it is the last thing I do, and it very well might be. I never, repeat, NEVER finish anything that I start. Not even sentences upon occasion, but I think I have something to say, and gosh darn it; I'm going to say it. I have been reading a lot lately about what makes good writing good, and what makes bad writing bad. I'm starting to feel that besides grammar and spelling, it is a largely subjective part of literature. One woman's Danielle Steel is another woman's Virginia Woolf.
I suddenly realized today that in my fantasies as a teenager I always imagined myself older. Now in my fantasies, I imagine myself younger. I imagine myself to be a teenager to be exact. A teenager with my whole life ahead of me; I'm actually now on the downside of this youth thing. I'm trying to make myself believe youth is not all that important. That growing older is part of life and you get wiser and all that bullshit. As you can tell, it isn't working. I don't feel as though I have accomplished a damn thing. This may have something to do with that not finishing anything thing. This is actually how this whole book thing started. I had an epiphany, and it is that I am a SLACKER. I am almost thirty years old. I live paycheck to paycheck. I am unmarried with a kid, and a boyfriend that I hate. I rent and I have a job for which I have no passion. My car doesn't even have air conditioning or a valid inspection sticker. My credit is bad. I am fat. I am the textbook case of what NOT to do with your life. How did that happen? I had so much potential. I was so young once with my whole life ahead of me. Okay...enough bellyaching. I have this list of the "20 Rules of Wisdom" hanging up in the gray little box, that is my cubicle. It is from one of those emails that I normally would just delete, and never open, but occasionally I stop being so damned cynical and give hope another try. Number 18 says, "It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are done."
Well I am flushing. I can't really be upset with anyone at how my life has turned out because I have done it to myself. I wanted to be independent to make my own mistakes, and well I did it in the grandest of fashions, so now I have to make it all right, somehow. But I am not exactly sure how. At least if I can begin writing down what it is I'm doing from this point on I can avoid making similar mistakes, if I can see them as they happen. At least that is the theory. Well, here's giving hope one more go round.
