The Illusion of Control
Can I learn to bleed again?
What do we really know? What can we really, in effect, affect?
On December 6th, I started publishing daily on Medium. I wrote at least one post, every single day — something I had always wanted to do but never succeed. That day, something clicked. A surge of motivation and new connections made from months being exposed to the same information as well as comments from friends, family and my inner voice. I just had to get on with it.
Tomorrow, the January 6th will then mark my first ever completed 30-day writing challenge.
Or will it?
Was I really in control of this challenge?
Did I fool myself into writing?
What I wrote, did it matter?
Will it?
Can I keep it up?
What now?
The days dragged on. I could feel the rising discomfort: not knowing what to write, where to write, how to write.
What publication?
What time do I publish?
Who am I writing for?
How do I send this to my growing newsletter?
Daily? Weekly?
What about my YouTube channel?
What about my podcast?
What about…?
I know this. The discomfort is one I have felt when there was a need for my imminent evolution.
Where I could no longer hope to coast — where I can’t free form and expect readers to glean.
I need to bleed.
I know this because I look at my drafts and figuratively twist those digital dregs into the nothingness of delete.
What do I really have to say?
What do I really have to say?
What…do I …have to say?
Do I even have to say anything?
A lot stays in my head. Discomfort. A lot I can’t say for fear. Discomfort. So I write poetry. Discomfort. I talk about love. Discomfort. I talk about who I want to be, the life I want to live. Discomfort.
I talk about everything — except D—
Can I really control where this is all going?
Can I, in essence, direct my destiny, take the path I would only be certain of in hindsight?
Can I learn to bleed again?
