After work I heat up a ready-meal from M&S – Chicken tikka and rice. I dump it in a bowl and gobble it all up, without a moment’s consideration of whether I’m hungry or not. Afterwards I light a cone of incense, place it on a tray outside the window and meditate. Whilst meditating I try to find the person meditating. I can’t find anyone. And when I look for the person having this realisation they’re not there either. I bask in the being nothing for just a brief moment.
The incense has gone out. I relight it and place the tray inside. I grab my laptop, open a blank document and get to work – I’m going to write, with no purpose, no plan, no intention. The small room is flooded in perfumed smoke. How to go about writing about nothing?
The aim is to create work regularly, then to share it almost immediately. Some of it will land, most of it won’t. The goal is to assert myself here, on this little plot of internet. This writing is what I stand for, it confirms my identity.
I’m not sure why I finally made the decision to make this blog – when it crossed the threshold of idea to reality – as it happens rarely. Before I’d even stoped to consider why, I’d started writing. But not long before I’d posted a couple of things did I that familiar voice perk up: What will you write about? Ok, fair question.
What are you qualified to write about?
But thoughts turned nastier too. I told myself that anyone reading what I had to say, what I might have to say, will surely see through the veil: I knew I was an idiot without substance.
It’s an obsession with the end result that’s my biggest block: I’ve had an obsession with “having something to say” since long before I ever dared to try anything, figuring that someone with so little to add to the conversation better keep his mouth shut. But how do you figure out what you have to say if you’re forced to silence? You can’t think your way into creating.
The smoke grows overwhelming – it continues to shoot off the little cone in great big plumes. I place the tray back outside.
I know my creativity is something that needs a lot of encouragement. But what if it didn’t. What if I could create a regular, daily practice so that writing could become something that isn’t so scary. And what if it wasn’t just for myself. What if by sharing my own journey I could help others?
In The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, Seth Godin encourages the artist in search of a voice to focus on the practice, not on the outcome. He writes that by creating work for other people, generously, we can be helpful. Our work becomes not just a hobby but a profession. Maybe it’s a hobbyist attitude that’s been holding me back. (Who knows, I haven’t finished the book yet. I’ve been reading it, sneakily, on my desktop at work, between one boring task and another).
But is this just pressure, repackaged?
The essential difference is that I’m not focusing on the end result. If I focus on the process – of writing often (practicing), then sharing the work (letting it go), I can become better at what I do. I realise now what the blog can be: a space to hold my thoughts, a space to figure out what I have to say, how I would like to say it. An exploration of creativity. How it can help, how it can transform my life.
I guess tonight’s as good a night as any to begin again, to focus on the practice, to write often and to share often. Just like my meditation practice, which has taught me to let go of an ulterior purpose, that beginning again is always possible, that all there is in an endless present moment. So long as I focus on the process, on connecting and on helping, I’m doing good work.
