satisfied mind.

I am feeling very stubborn. I don't want to write and I definitely don't want to write anything particularly beautiful or inspiring. I want my fingers to do their thing, somewhat removed from my brain and beating heart. I want some words to spill out of me and be cut off. I want to cast them out.

For my sake, I've told myself that I can write anything tonight. I can write anything as long as it's something. No order no structure no meaning no censor just write write write. My pride resists being told what to do, it resists criticism and even encouragement. But someone very wise said to me last night, "Write about it, write about it, write about it." I dropped my eyes and mumbled, "Ok. But maybe I don't want to write about it, maybe I just want to talk about it."

But he knew that really, I wanted to write about it. Or needed to. Whatever.

I feel angry sometimes. Angry over injustice in the world, over the suffering that is ignored, over the hurt and pain caused in the name of money or religion. I feel sad sometimes. Sad because people die and life is sometimes dull and we can never accomplish all that we hope. I feel discouraged sometimes. I cry when I shouldn't, I procrastinate when I should work, I read books by writers who are not very good but seem to be making a lot of money. People that I love dearly are unhappy sometimes, they work too hard, they don't have the things that they want, they feel dissatisfied and incomplete. There are other people that I want to love, but I don't try hard enough. The man at the corner rattling the cup for change. The neighbor who never says hello. And others, just the people all around. We should be loving them all. I don't always do it.

Here's a secret: I don't know what I want to be. I don't think that I ever will. There are things I want to do and lots of them. Things that light me up, that I am engaged in and committed to. But there is some block in my brain that won't let me categorize myself. I can't become an occupation, no matter how I try. It all just seems like living to me.

This is taken a lot of different ways, and some of them aren't so kind. It is juvenile, immature, naive. It is unrealistic and unmotivated. But let me tell you something. In the words of Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes, I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

This is nonsense. Of course it is. You can't write the crazy first thoughts from your brain at midnight and expect anything else. But the kicker is that the nonsense is the real thing. It's the thoughts that are there and sparking and alive. They're the ones that keep me chained to this awful plastic chair late in the night with numb fingers and toes, hunched over my desk to type the words.

It's good to feel things. I feel them and for that I'm grateful. The range of human emotion is what makes art possible. Anton Chekov said, The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist. I think those are good words. Want and Hope and Fear. Do those things. Something will come out of them. Feel some feelings. Write about it, write about it, write about it.