Consistency

And its lack thereof

One thing that has long plagued my writing career (such as it is) is my lack of consistency. I leave my pages fallow and wordless for months, sometimes even years at a time. This is not by design, although failure to plan might account for some of it. Since realising I had some writing talent as a teenager, I’ve tried to hone that skill. Constantly walking about with a notepad, scribbling poems and refining my thoughts by putting them down, reading voraciously so that I learn more language to express myself in, and generally trying to grow as a writer. However, towards my late teens, my mental health took a turn for the worse. I tried to process some of it through writing, of course, but ultimately being diagnosed with bipolar disorder proved a mercy because the ups and downs of my emotional state wouldn’t even let me put pen to paper.

That being said, I’ve tried and I keep trying. I have an old WordPress site, which I updated from 2012 to 2017, where my early forays into poetry, creative nonfiction, and the occasional fiction are archived. Some of the work is inspired, but most of it shows the effort that went into it. By the time I stopped posting there, I had almost a thousand subscribers. The only year I didn’t publish anything at all (at least not that I can remember) was 2015. Considering I was trying to get my life back on track after it had imploded a bit due to my first manic episode in 2014, I’ll excuse myself. I might have written something elsewhere, but I can’t remember. But you see what I just did, excusing myself? That right there is why I don’t have a more consistent writing career.

It’s always something, which, to be honest, is usually valid, but it boils down to whether I want to be a writer badly enough to write despite myself. I can’t only write when the stars align and I feel good; I have to write when psychic pain has me holding myself tight to keep from falling apart. I have to write when my life is upside down, and I’m not sure if I’m making progress or regressing. I have to write when I doubt myself and my ability as much as I have to write when I am convinced I’m the second coming of Hemingway (who I’ve never read, so this is probably a bad example, but you get my drift.)

Why is this so important to me? What is one more writer in a world currently suffering from a preponderance of the written word? This is a good, somewhat philosophical question, and I might not be the best person to examine it, but walk with me. I’ve actually looked at a similar question a bit in this post from last year. The TL;DR of that post is that my voice is as important as anyone else’s, my perspective matters, and there are “dangers of a single story” to quote Chimamanda Adichie.

However, let’s reframe that a little. There’s no need to look at my life in relation to the lives of the rest of the human race to make it significant. What if I’m the only living thing, and existence is a fever dream I’m experiencing? There’s a school of thought for that as well, but let’s assume I came to this (unoriginal) thought on my own. Why in this one beautiful flash in the pan that is my existence do I not write? I do myself a disservice if I do not give expression to myself as fully and broadly as I am capable of. What if “throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honoured one”?

Gojo Satoru, from the popular manga/anime, JuJutsu Kaisen, says a quote originally attributed to the Buddha.

To use an internet phrase, that’s the Main Character Energy I want to approach writing with from now on, and what is a main character without their plot armour? I want to write even if no one reads. I want to write even if I never get formally published. I want to write even if I never make any money from it. I want to write for the plot of my own life. For my own edification and growth. I want to write to improve my writing skills and connect with people who share similar ideas and perspectives. However, beyond that, I also want to write to preserve my thoughts and beliefs for posterity. I want to write as a flag on the moon, to say I lived, I thought, I was.

I say all this to say that I owe myself consistency. I owe it to myself to show up and put pen to paper or cursor to page. I owe it to no one more than myself to improve and refine my expression. I owe it to myself to interrogate my thoughts and beliefs on issues (current or otherwise) and see what stuff I’m actually made of. I owe it to myself to slow down and process the world in this hyperdigital age, to discern which thoughts are mine and which are the algorithm’s, and to consider whether I agree with any of them. I owe it to myself to know who I am so I can show up as my best self for my community. Writing is a vehicle to self-exploration, and it’s time to shut up and drive.

So, this is me writing. I’m not sure if this has been a rant, rambling or rumination, but it’s what you signed up for, so enjoy! I’ve used a lot of Is in this piece, but you can replace them with Yous and see if they don’t apply to you. In any (creative) activity, not just writing, but anything that makes your soul sing. To quote Martin Luther King Jr.,

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

This is the energy I’m going to approach writing with forthwith, and I invite you to do the same. Until next time, Peace and Constant Ks.