Okay, I’ve been bad about managing the website and blog.
It’s a combination of factors:
1. Resistance – The bitter act of refusing the call to action. The mental roadblock conjured by the ego to destroy our attempts at manifesting the life we desire. An unconscious barrier that hinders our hero’s journey.
A real pain in the ass.
In Modern Psychoanalysis, healing is linked to the analyst’s ability to disarm the patient’s psychological resistances aka self destructive behaviors, negative coping mechanisms, self-infantilization (learned helplessness), neurosis, personality disorders, addictions, etc. The patient can become reliant on resistance to avoid difficult truths or avoid expressing negative emotions to the point where the illness or behavior becomes a sanctuary or identity for the person inflicted.
Sometimes we have a difficult time imagining life without the illness or negative behaviors. Why? The ego wants to maintain normalcy and control.
A change of lifestyle threatens the predictability that the ego has maintained for survival. Venturing into the unknown leaves you floating without your life jacket.
The ego wants to see you fail, or worse, the ego doesn’t even want you to try.
It sucks… something I should love and pursue with all my heart becomes the source of my frustration. The bane of my existence. Instead of just sitting down to write, I find a million excuses to work on something, anything but writing. Day after day, coming up with the same damn excuses.
“How about tomorrow?”
“Why don’t I work on ______ instead?”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
And trust me, I love working on music, but music isn’t my strongest feature.
I’ve always been a writer. Since the third grade I’ve known I was a writer.
And while music production may play an integral part in my storytelling ability, I’m still lightyears away from mastering the craft.
Hell, I’m just trying not to hurt people’s ears right now…
I’ve been producing music for almost five years… maybe if you added another ten years experience I would be more confident, but long story short I’ve got a long ways to go.
Maybe one day, after years of dedicated work, my different creative avenues will cross at an intersection, but for now I need to prioritize the more realistic mediums: Writing and potentially videography, but mainly writing.
While I made sales this vending season, I would’ve sold more t-shirts, paintings, and website related content if I spent more time constructing short stories, screenplays, and short films. The real backbone of thebadboob.com. The real reason I started the website in the first place.
And I’ve barely posted anything in the years of managing the site.
The fear of failure, the fear of embarrassment, the fear of having no talent; nothing more than the sharp fangs of resistance pulling the blood of inspiration from your withering corpse.
2. Perfectionism – I’ve developed a twisted mindset that if I spend enough time and energy on the first draft, then maybe I can skip the rewrite all together. Because who likes to re-write? Crafting a song or beat takes between one to four hours. So why can’t I achieve the same results from writing short stories, especially if I try my ass off?
Instead of letting my inner voice run free, I’m manually breathing through the rough draft. Reading and re-reading the same sentences. Scouring the thesaurus for the most impactful word choice. Touting sentences allowed for tongue twisting alliteration. And then overwriting my sentences like some wannabe Cormac McCarthy.
The stories feel stale, overwrought, and unfinished.
In my attempts to avoid a re-write, I make the re-write all the more inevitable, and once the disappointment seeps into consciousness, I find it challenging to revisit the work or continue writing all together.
“The work has to be my best work to date, and anything less is not acceptable.” It really kills the vibe.
Ray Bradbury kept a sign over his desk that read:
“Just write. “
Stop listening to the inner critic, stop thinking about how others will react, stop worrying about writing the best story ever, stop and just write.
3. Overstimulation – Overstimulation and lack of sleep are two driving factors in my lack of writing. Compounded with medication changes and dosage tweaking for my insomnia and I’m left mentally exhausted and downright angry.
I’m not going to linger on the overstimulation thing because I’ve beat the horse to death, but I’ve got a sensitive nervous system and I’m easily affected by my environment. While I do love socializing and going to shows in particular, I prefer long durations in solitude to recharge my battery, hence why I live in the woods.
Sleep has the most significant impact on my writing, so my world really does revolve around decent shut eye.
Unfortunately, it’s just easier said than done.
5. Cannabis – After a rough night of sleep or in the throes of overstimulation, it’s tempting to smoke cannabis. Unfortunately, this drastically affects my writing output and alters my entire day, especially if used in the morning.
Cannabis and I have a funny relationship. While herb helps with sleep, pain management, digestion issues, anger, and anxiety; I become dependent on the substance for day to day living. Appetite, mood regulation, sleep, and the dopamine reward system all fall prey to cannabis dependance.
Although after thirteen years of daily use, I think I’m beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m confronting the negative effects of smoking and consuming edibles every day, while simultaneously struggling with what’s become an expensive retail habit. I mean smoking every day is expensive. It’s not cheap, and I’d appreciate more financial freedom.
But even as I write this blog post, I’ve smoked within the past couple hours.
I’m just at the point where anything I’ve written high is better than having written nothing at all.
6. Laziness – I can admit I get lazy and look for the path of least resistance.
Is it because I’m a pisces? Because I smoke too much pot?
While I’m rather anal when it comes to time management, sometimes I avoid writing because I know it’s the most difficult of my artistic mediums. Experimental electronic music, abstract paintings, naive drawings, and analog glitch don’t require the sensibility and coherence of a short story. Writing is also the one medium that is noticeably affected by cannabis use.
Cannabis produces a stutter in the reading and writing of even the most skilled potheads, and most days I just don’t feel like quitting.
Part of me feels unable to write after smoking pot because of my perfectionism (now the writing won’t be as good), and perhaps I wouldn’t have smoked pot if I’d gotten the necessary sleep and wasn’t overstimulated.
And maybe if I wasn’t so overstimulated and sleep deprived, maybe I wouldn’t be so lazy and resistant.
Many of the causes and effects are directly linked.
My resistances are only enhanced by the overstimulation, lack of sleep, and general anxiety from the mounting days of being unproductive. It’s like getting caught in a bad trip, a bad loop of repeating the same destructive behaviors.
While I try and force myself to be productive, there’s still a selective laziness about writing in particular, and I worry that I’m creating sleep problems just to create an excuse to avoid writing.
7. Politics – I got way too into politics over the past couple years. Many of us were worried about the direction of free speech during COVID, and saw specific actors as existential threats to our freedom. While normally I’m not vocal regarding politics and feel a reluctance to vote, the past few years radically changed my involvement.
I don’t like seeing the rise of radical politics, political violence, or authoritarianism, but unfortunately it seems thats where we’re headed.
Going forward, I don’t plan on using my platform to sway people’s political opinions. I don’t plan to talk about politics. I’d prefer my views stay anonymous and hidden within the confines of my artwork.
Engaging in politics became another neurosis and distraction from spending time productively.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I just had to clear the air, make the unconscious conscious and vocalize my thoughts. Sometimes the best thing we can do is just talk aloud or write and get the energy out, somehow, someway. I’ve been struggling with writing and there’s a part of me that worries that I might not be a writer after all. And that’s a scary thought, because then what? Where do I go? What do I do?
But I can’t get caught in the web of worries.
I’ve just gotta put one foot in front of the other, one computer key in front of the next, and get to work .
THE BADBOOB 