I often find myself sitting at my computer, or in bed, and trying to figure out what I can or should write about. I procrastinate terribly, though, and rare is the word that gets committed. I look at myself, unmotivated for every variety of reason. Sometimes I feel that for all I've gone through, I really have nothing to say. At other times I know that this isn't true, but my fear becomes one of ego - that maybe what I have to say isn't as awe-inspiring as I've lead myself to believe. And although I know this should be the last possible thing to serve as dissuasion, I cannot help but let it serve as due cause for procrastination to set in.
Tonight, I felt inspired to write and hesitated before finally deciding against taking my medication - sodium valproate, for fear its mood levelling qualities will deter this inspiration, and bring back the cloud of ambivalence I know only so well.
I have always been fascinated by writing. I am, at times, a voracious reader, though my knowledge of the "classics" is limited to my general knowledge, rather than intimate acquaintance with the actual texts. I have faith in my ability to write technically well, and my understanding and beliefs in what makes a good story, but it seems my ability to produce such a creation constantly fails me. But yet, to look at what I have written, of my own volition, and you will find not more than a scant few pages, ideas that seemed good at the time, ideas that may still be good, but all without exception ideas that have not been brought into fruition.
I have this burning desire to achieve, but I find myself constantly quenching this desire with a lack of willpower, energy, or both. I could point to so many reasons for this, but I find myself in danger of making those reasons into excuses, if that isn't what they already were. On those rare occasions where the desire has not been quenched, I find myself languishing in the pit of procrastination, working on a project without really working on it - playing with the engine, and never driving the vehicle anywhere, so to speak. I wonder if that is something else entirely, and perhaps not procrastination, but another self-defence mechanism, protecting me from the pessimistic fear that if I do attempt to create something, it will not meet the sometimes exacting standards and criteria I place upon myself.
I have, at varying times, been described at the high watermark of my being, and at the low, too. On one hand being labelled "gifted" and "talented", and on the other having a lacklustre performance at school. On one hand finding exceptional innate abilities to debate, discuss, explain, and on the other, to have far lower abilities than expected in some areas of mathematics and science, almost at random. And this erratic image is only further complicated once out of the realm of academia.
I do not place myself in great stead in this regard, nor believe myself to be unique, either. I am only too aware that this is, in all probability, a description which most people could apply to their lives, at least at some point or other.
But again and again I sit at my computer, and I stare. I ponder. I daydream. I listen to some music, and rapidly lose myself in the rhythms, the melodies, the lyrics, wishing silently but not so quietly that I too could have that innate ability to translate what I know is inside into the written word. Even now, I feel the spark dying, and it is a very conscious and definite effort to fan it, keep it alight, however dimly. On this, I am in two minds, I look at what I have done in so short a time, and how substantial this writing is in my body of work, and then I reverse the image and can only imagine what I may be capable of if I could put myself to this through the long hours required.
My, such a tortured and martyred soul I must appear to be making myself out to be when, dear readers, I am so very aware that these long hours are in fact what writing is about.