The fine art of self-preservation
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about self-preservation and the countless things we do to protect ourselves. From heartache, from illness, from getting so annoyed we might want to learn how to set people on fire with our eyes.
My personal strategy is an aggressive form of tuning out. If I’m feeling a little under the weather I’ll stock up on tissues or Tums and then tune it out for as long as I can. If I’m in a bad situation, I’ll loudly process my anger or annoyance and then tune the situation out until I’m back in it again. No sense in letting it linger.
I’m amazed at the ways people choose to protect themselves, and what they chose to protect themselves from.
Aging, for example, seems like a bizarre thing to spend so much time worrying about. And it’s created a quite literal form of self-preservation just a few steps shy of people napping in giant jars of formaldehyde.
Gossip is another interesting form of self-preservation. Telling other people’s stories to distract from our own, to allow us the opportunity to declare we are not like “that”, whatever the “that” may be.
Of course, there’s healthy living. Ah, the elusive healthy living. If eating right and exercising are the keys to longevity, then I’m sunk.
Lying is perhaps the one trick of the self-preservationist that bothers me the most. And that’s not to say that I haven’t ever done it myself, in my young, messy days. Now a lie seems like so much work. I happen to have a clear view of a woman who has told so many lies that she no longer has a truthful path available to her. So, daily, she spins more and more stories to cover for her original untruths, at times getting so tangled up she is literally unable to finishes sentences. The only option available to her now is retreat, escape, departure, an option she is wisely choosing.
In the meantime, how do I avoid searching online for “instructions set fire with eyes” during the times that I need to preserve my own self? What strategies will I adopt to ensure that I’m not splashed by someone else’s formaldehyde, or tangled in someone else’s web of gossip or fantasy?
Aggressive avoidance remains the key. Although I occasionally emerge from my hiding place to seek out escape routes and make small rackets, self-preservation sometimes means flying under the radar until I’m ready to jump.
When the words don’t come
What does it take to keep going once I’ve started writing? Is there any guarantee that this time will be different than the 50 other times I’ve started a journal or book, only to abandon those endeavors weeks or months or maybe just days later? So far, the writing has been working out. Writing group is a help, although the composition of the group has dramatically changed, and it feels a little less about writing and more about hanging out now. It was our targeted focus on our writing process that made the first few sessions together so inspiring. But what I don’t need is coffee klatch. I’m determined to take this as seriously as I can.
Maybe I need a group filled with people I don’t know. But in the meantime, how do I let life, and my job, and relationships not get in the way of actually sitting down and putting words on the page?
It’s been a while since I finished my last piece for writing group. And I’ve had a hard time even setting aside time to think about my next. My job’s been crazy, my life is perpetually busy – but that was true at the beginning of this process. Is it a 5 month slump? I wonder if I could look back on all of my failed attempts at being a regular writer in the past and find the average length of time those attempts have lasted. It would probably be about 4 months.
So, here it is – the test. It actually feels a little like my relationship with Jack. When we made it past 4 months, I knew it would last forever. Could that be the same for my life as a writer?
I hope so. Even lamenting my lack of writing by writing about it feels promising. What else can I do? Write some more, obviously. But even as I’m sitting here at my office desk, I’m eyeing my brightly colored Post-It notes and…done! A hot pink note to myself on my keyboard reading: Don’t just sit there —WRITE! Maybe egging myself on will help.
Then, I’ll need to figure out if this group, productive though it is, is the right group for me – a lonely non-fiction writer in a world of women with unending imaginations. Many of the questions that I still have, that I had from the beginning of this project about how far I can take non-fiction, will never be answered by this group, because from the start they admitted that they’re afraid of non-fiction, and would rather take out their real life feelings in a made-up world.
So, I guess I’ll just have to do it. Maybe I’ll go back to my own non-fiction writing prompts in between group assignments. I know a few other writers, maybe there’s a non-fiction writing group I can join. I want to be challenged by other writers, pushed. And, knowing what I want should be the key to getting there.
