Journal Entry (July 23, 2019): Fear
Below is an excerpt from the Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”:
“Fear of the consequences of following our heart. Fear of bankruptcy, fear of poverty, fear of insolvency. Fear of groveling when we try to make it on our own, and of groveling when we give up and come crawling back to where we started. Fear of being selfish, of being rotten wives or disloyal husbands; fear of failing to support our families, of sacrificing their dreams for ours. Fear of betraying our race, our ’hood, our homies. Fear of failure. Fear of being ridiculous. Fear of throwing away the education, the training, the preparation that those we love have sacrificed so much for, that we ourselves have worked our butts off for. Fear of launching into the void, of hurtling too far out there; fear of passing some point of no return, beyond which we cannot recant, cannot reverse, cannot rescind, but must live with this cocked-up choice for the rest of our lives. Fear of madness. Fear of insanity. Fear of death. These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed.”
I remember listening to this passage in audiobook format. I was on the boardwalk in Belmar, taking my morning walk, getting the blood flowing, clearing my head. When I heard this, it hit me. It definitely struck a chord. It made me emotional. I could feel the tears coming. And they came hard. I was sweating and it was hot and I had a hat and dark sunglasses on, and the tears mixed with sweat and they were streaming down my face.
Steven knew what I was feeling. He knew it intimately. These are REAL fears. The one about throwing away everything that we have worked so hard to achieve, that one got me. I feel that fear in my guts. My life is better than good now. How could I risk it? What am I risking it for?
Something is gnawing at me. A voice searching for an outlet, being suppressed. But how could I risk what I’ve built, that which supports my family, my comfort, their comfort, their opportunity to do something bigger than what I’ve done. To be an artist. To have the support to explore. That’s what I say I want for my children. Truth is, it’s what I want for myself. I’m scared about what will happen if I go for it.
Steven makes a pretty compelling argument to go for it. For now, I will work on my craft, try to find my territory. Hone my skill. Shed my ego and look for a voice of the self. Listen carefully and speak clearly and honestly. Let go of shame and guilt. Let the tears flow. Embrace the emotion, the fear. Apparently that fear never goes away. Better start getting comfortable.
Journal Entry (July 25, 2019): The Zone
I’ve been thinking a bit today about the right posting frequency. I’ve been trying to convince myself that perhaps posting every day was too much. Perhaps posting at a lower / slower speed would be more ideal, would give readers a better chance to catch their breath, to digest the posts completely before moving on to the next. This feels an awful lot like a form of resistance.
It’s really just a form of fear, some rationalization that will take me off the scent, off the hook, out of the area of focus. It’s certainly easier to not post. It’s not as time consuming. It doesn’t expose me to ongoing criticism. No risk of being judged for saying something wrong or stupid or exposing myself as a fraud or incompetent.
There is also no upside in not posting. But worse than that, there is a negative effect of bottling up that which we have to say. I did a walk & talk (Instagram: @danielcdaly) this morning and I decided not to share it. It was not well thought out. It felt a bit jumbled. I was not able to pull the thread the way that I sometimes can when I’m focused and when the ideas are genuine and authentic.
I have felt this way before. It seems to happen when there IS something on my mind, but I attempt to talk about something else. It’s like I’m avoiding the real and trying to fake some alternative. I’m getting a bit better at detecting that feeling. It’s subtle. I guess that skill, the skill of detection and self awareness, can be developed with practice (surprise, surprise).
So maybe this journaling exercise is a practice in being authentic. You can do and say and type about whatever you like, but the only way to really make it flow, and do it well, is to do it from the heart. If you try to make something up, to give people what you think they are going to want, you will struggle. You will fail every time. If you speak from your actual perspective about the things actually swirling around in your head, then there may be something to say. You may be able to genuinely connect with someone. You may be able to say something real.
I think Steven Pressfield understood that. And that’s why he said you just have to do the work every day. Because doing the work every day means that you don’t give yourself any oxygen to make shit up. You simply can’t make stuff up every day, day after day. The ONLY way to produce like that is to do so authentically and genuinely.
I pulled back a bit yesterday. I didn’t follow my process. I passed on the morning journaling session. I tried to jot down a few notes in the afternoon. It wasn’t my morning routine, when I’m in my zone, when I’m focused and when I know that I can actually produce something original and genuine. And there you go, I didn’t do the work and when I was on my walk this morning, I didn’t have the firepower, the organized mind that is necessary to carry a train of thought for 4-5 minutes. I felt flat. I felt jumbled. I felt inauthentic. I felt like I was searching for the words. I couldn’t find the exact right way to describe what was going on, because I wasn’t locked in. I was half in the talk and half somewhere else. That’s not the way to produce. That’s not the way to be.
I told Rachel later in the morning that I felt “cloudy.” That I was still searching for the meaning of life, that’s all. Truth is, I know where I need to be. I just wrote and publicly posted on the topic of Practice, but I pulled off my process. Lesson learned.
Time to get back on schedule and do the things that I know I need to do. Stay in the crossfire. Stay in the zone of judgement. Stay authentic and vulnerable. Allow the chips to fall, but know that I’m being true to myself in the process.
