In the interest of transparency, yesterday was a Not Good day for me, mentally. I’ll spare you what that means on the practical level, and instead talk about what it means for me philosophically (although, to be clear, I’m not a philosopher). It means that I question myself endlessly, or rather, question my actions. Good enough? True enough? Enough enough?
What does it even mean to doubt ones self if you are, in fact, clearly present in the world?
I have friends to help me though rough patches, fortunately. But in the end all I really have is myself, and what I’m doing. And what I tend to do for myself, repeatedly, is make things difficult.
Today I sat down to do an regular exercise which I have not done for several weeks, which is write out in pencil on cheap paper “How can this be easy?” followed by at least two pages of free-association (undirected) writing. Scribbles, more like. Usually this spirals down into pages of, as they say, “should-ing on myself”. Instead, today resulted in a short answer that I did not think about as I scrawled it out over half a page: WRITE.
I looked up in the kitchen and saw this card, recently sent to me by the founders of Ream, welcoming to their growing team of authors who are starting to build subscription platforms. Joining this group of trailblazers has re-invigorated my dreams of being a storyteller (as opposed to a high-falutin’ “author”!). As has re-reading Hands of the Emperor, one of the most down-to-earth and majestic fantasy books ever written.
I remember: storytellers rule the world.
I remember: My family, my people, are storytellers.
I remember: I have stories to tell.
