Inside Baseball

Or, how the curveball is hard to throw.

I sat down to write today and nothing came out of my fingers, or my brain for that matter. In fact, that was not the first time I wrote that sentence. Like everyone who has come before me and everyone who shall replace me in this world, I hit a wall.

Since I am me, I decided to stop and examine the wall. I wanted to see what it was made of. I wanted to see if it had cracks. I wanted to know how it felt and how it smelled and how it tasted… ok that last part sounds weird; however, the point is, I wanted to know what this block was all about.

Sometimes writers are blocked because they have something to say. They have something inside their head that rattles around like an old tooth in a stained wood box on a stick, and until they unleash the beast, they are prevented from writing about anything else. I am no longer comfortable that we live in a world where you can unleash your beasts. If Margaret Atwood can have her feminist credentials questioned, are any of us safe for speaking our mind?

Can I for example, say that Black Panther was just alright for me without having to have a race discussion. I swear my opinion isn’t based on race, and the first mother fucker to step in and call me racist is going to have to deal with some major push back. I may one day tell the story of Andre, a black boy I saw beaten to death, but today is not that day.

Am I blocked though because of a reluctance to wade in to the social justice pit? I am I afraid to share more of me? Am I not willing to give away my best work for free?

That could be what this is all about for me, but I am not so sure.

When deciding what to write about today, instead of looking inside my head and pulling out whatever lurked in the corners, I decided to look at my metrics. I know, rookie mistake, right?

Since I generally write about three things, or rather, have three main categories of writing, we can break can break it down thusly, fiction, non-fiction, and Geek stuff.

In my fiction I write all sorts of things and in a few genres, mostly about dudes who are pissed about not getting laid.

In my Geek stuff I write about super geeky shit like dungeons and dragons and not getting laid.

In my non-fiction I often self disclose crazy things that have happened to me in the past and other traumatic bullshit. Oh and how I can’t get laid.

What do you think my metrics tell me people want from me? They want to see my scars. People react to and find most interesting my personal experiences and the bad things I have done or have been done to me. The difference between my geek stuff and my self disclosure stuff is ten fold from an “eyes on” perspective. The fiction rides between them leaning slightly to the top side.

I bring all of this up, not because I am desperately stalling or just trying to toss out enough word salad to be satisfied with having fulfilled my inner promise to update every week, but rather to inform the real heart of the matter.

What the fuck am I trying to do here?

I have had “blogs” before. 3 to be exact.

The first was, and I know this is going to be somewhat shocking, was to try and get laid. Interesting fact, my prime target of that blog was a lesbian. I am not proud of that situation, but I like to think that she is not mad at me and that some of the things I wrote helped her freely express her self.

The second was an attempt to get rich. I briefly had delusions of being a famous internet something or other; however, this was in the days of the youtube superstar, and the blogosphere was limited. In the end, I was only writing for three people and each one I knew in real life so it became easier to just talk to them.

The third blog was an attempt to be therapeutic. The thinking was, if I had an outlet for the feelings and memories I had stored uop, and that were, at the time, causing no end of turmoil in me and my relationships. This never really went anywhere and I intentionally wanted it hidden from the world as much as possible when you plop something smelly on to the internet landscape.

This time was different. This time I had a plan. This time I bought a domain and everything. This time I wanted to develop a small but loyal follower base so that I could self publish some work and make a few dollars on the side, plus feel good about myself and realize that potential that central casting teacher saw in me at some point or other. I’m not sure, I was high at the time and her head was warping in six different directions.

Thing is, I had a plan. A plan. The plan. Plans.

What do we know about plans? Plans never survive longer than 5 minutes in the real world do they? Oh sure, you can scheme and plot and calculate as many variables and possibilities as you can think about; yet, like the algorithm from last week, you just can’t calculate them all. You just can’t solve for Chaos.

I realizee now, as I sit wondering what terrible scar I have to open up to reveal myself for people, I should not have made a plan. I should have had a dream.

Dreams are so much better than plans. Dreams are fluid and malleable. They adapt to the changing world. Dreams are better because they cannot fail.

As long as you are thinking about your dream and working on your dream, it is succeeding.

Plans have goals and objectives. Strategies for obtaining results. Milestone markers. Fucking metrics. They are specific and measurable and attainable and realistic and timely. Plans are SMART.

Dreams are intangible yet visoins that seem so possible. Dreams have feeling and emotion and side quests. Dreams are heuristic and ethereal, and artistic and ridiculous and they are terrifying. Dreams are HEART.

As I sit here wondering where to go from here, I realize my goal was planned and not dreamed out. As I sit here, preparing to once again click publish in to the breach, I realize, I am one dream short of attainment. One dream shy of a lifestyle. A scant dream short of true happiness and purpose.

I am not sure when I lost the ability to dream, or if even that is the right way to put it. I have stepped from the road on to the safety of the sidewalk where we plan our moves. The sidewalk is where we look both ways and set up contingencies and wait for  our chance to break the flow and get what we are after, that other side of the road.

Walking along the road you have to flow in and out with the tides of traffic. You look ahead to the next point, not to the other side of the road, but rather the middle, then 3/4 then the other side. Walking on the road is the path of danger, where you need quick reflexes and the ability to adapt.

I am bored with the sidewalk of life. I am not sure if I was ever made to walk along it.

I want to dream again. I want this place to be a place of dreams, good and bad.

I’ll have to see if I have set aside time to dream tonight.