Balance

fear is that frustratingly useless companion. i'm so tired of fear.

there is no clearer anthem for my own personal lack of balance than that reigning chorus of doubts (pulled that one out in a straight line, i did...)

mostly, i balance in the direction of, i don't know.. duty/obligation. i have a job to do. to succeed. i have a duty to accomplish something with this life, with these ideas of mine, with these talents. i have only so many hours, i have only so many days. i have one opportunity. i'm proud of my trophies.

you know when i know that i'm unbalanced? when i find myself sitting on the couch on a tuesday playing guitar, fighting over a new idea, a new song, and NOT enjoying it. because at some point, it's shifted, and it's about production. not production: sounds and signals, but production: results. it's about doing it, making it, because it's a trophy, a symbol of my hard work and my success. why have i lost the ability to enjoy it? and where.. at what point did it go? can i not play to hear? to just listen to the sound of what i'm making, and enjoy it?

what is it that i want? not slowness. not laziness. i don't desire to spend my evenings sitting on the couch watching TV. i don't desire to be less aggressive. i desire a different REASON. i want to know who i am, and why i'm doing what i'm doing. what a fight that is. everything gets away from me. i am so unbelievably tied to this world, and to this mindset, this ingrained north american way of processing everything that comes at me. it's so frustrating!

i want very much to detach myself from myself. no, turn that around. i want to be myself. that's a ridiculously common phrase for a monumental concept. so often i stand outside of myself, looking down and observing myself in the middle of a conversation or situation. that's how i see second guessing. that's doubt and reservation. standing back, taking the situation in, and summarily coming up with a list of reasons why everything is sub-optimal.

do you know, those moments. i don't know if i'm alone in those, what i've come to call (in my own head) 'moments of clarity'. i talk about them on here quite a bit i guess. that's what i want. happiness.. that is happiness to me. no... joy. joy is an old word, and perhaps a word tainted by poorly conceived christian choruses, but i really think that, in those moments, i'm a step closer to my actual self, or the world is a step closer to its original design, or both. that is the real. i'm sure of it. the systems of today, of my life, are not, can not, be real. i keep trying to push through this superficial, sortof foggy mess to get to the real thing.

and to wrap (as if such things ever wrap... these thoughts hardly have a beginning, let alone an end. they mostly exist in that no man's land somewhere a few miles north of my heart, but at least a couple service centers south of my head) i wrote something i thought to be interesting in my 'journal' (see also, 'male diary') today:

'that is my worship. that is my song. where sunday songs and standard fare will fall short, as they will, my pursuit will be the constant. i hope that works for you.'

that feels right to me.


thanks for checking in. this has been another episode of 'existential wednesdays'. be sure to tune in next week when we discuss such gems as.....