Tag Archives: Consciousness

When my blog goes dormant.

My symptoms are to blame. I have increasingly been struggling with thinking. I am fairly certain that this is disease-related. And, when I can’t think, my writing bores.

I have been wanting to post something to my blog, each and every day that I fail to do so. Lately, I can’t trust my own judgement, as to what is worth sharing. In fact, on many days, reading anything at all is difficult. And, when I can’t follow a simple narrative, I am a defeated judge of quality.

The good news is that while I have been struggling to think, I have also made headway in dealing with the problem. Today is a perfect example. A myotonic-dystrophy fatigue forced me to nap this afternoon. Pain invaded my sleep. I nodded off tired and woke with a raging muscle ache. Everything hurts, but my head and neck distinguish themselves in this rodeo.

Normally, I wouldn’t be capable of writing for my blog under these conditions. But, today is no typical day. Today, my efforts at fighting through brain-haze are paying dividends.

While I might not have made much progress with my book, these past eight months, I have learned quite a bit about managing my symptoms. In the past, I have referred to this condition as writer’s block. But now, I would be wrong to do so. I know better. I would like to share with you some of what I have learned. For, today, in spite of my symptoms. I not only can read. I can write.

When I began.

This blog.

I thought, then, that I knew what I wanted to write.  But, I actually had some difficulty in achieving my objective.  I can see several reasons for this.  I will identify and discuss them here, and in upcoming posts.

My first problem is that, although I have been writing daily, none of it seemed appropriate for my blog.  So, my early practice was to post stuff from my journal that seemed worth sharing.

Now, here, I would like to introduce a subject.  I will call it my writing conscience.

My writing conscience has been nagging me to write specifically for my book.  And, write for this blog.  But, I was battling unseen forces.  And, sometimes you can’t clearly see your enemy until you gain the upper hand.

This evening has been different.

Than yesterday, and the day before.

Same pain.  More energy.  But weak.

I didn’t expect much when I approached today’s writing.  It felt perfunctory.

Then, I got going.  In the past, I would flail for days, anticipating a revisitation by my muse, sometime after my symptoms would inevitably recede.

I would write for days, waiting for creative insights to return.

However, today, although I still feel crappy, my mojo reappeared.  I wrote a thousand words, most destined for some place in my story.

I am excited, because these past six months, I have been writing in my journal about these episodic symptoms that set back my mind, every time.  I knew I needed to overcome these ill effects.

Somehow, I trusted that the seemingly endless weeks of deep concentration would eventually pay off.

My second post back from today, I attributed my new ability to brain-rewiring.

My book is being physically wired into my brain, by my mind.

A first-time writer has more to overcome than a published author.  Both are telling a story.  But a new author has to figure out how to tell a story, before doing so.

A nascent writer’s brain is pure potential, until the secrets of success unlock themselves from past habits of thinking.

Until everything else in life became secondary to my book, I couldn’t appropriately focus my thoughts.

Until I could focus my mind, I couldn’t envision how to achieve that first draft.

Today, I can trust in the process.  Just write every day.

 

Shh. Shh. Writer at work.

The blog has not gone.

Quiet.  Writer.  Preoccupied.

My creative periods come in spurts, between bouts of symptoms.

My book is my focus.  I am writing my calling card.

In this moment, between symptoms, I can be intensely productive.

I am on disability.  But, I no longer believe my condition should hold me back.

My book, if she sells, will be evidence I can earn my own keep.

Silence is the foundation on which all noise is built.

Sacred Space.

Within, I work.

Scientific Rumor

A rumor crawled along the grapevine, into my ear.

It was presented as scientific fact.

The human faculty, for music, predates language.

 

Early cavemen played music before they could speak in sentences.

I don’t know if it is true.  But, suppose it is.

Plausible.

 

Hands clapping and slapping.

Beating out complex rhythms.

Could poetry exist, otherwise?

What is life?

I want to share something.  But, I’m going through one of these myotonic-dystrophy episodes, where exertion brings on pain and.

Moving is exertion.  The days go by, and everything I write seems to suck.

My difficulty writing is part of my MD experience.  The highs, and lows, roughly follow my symptoms through the months.

So, this evening, I vaporized Sour Diesel.

Cannabis overcomes the inertia built into my symptom-cycle.

And Sour Diesel begs for music.

I fell asleep to Kaya.   Bob Marley’s ode to marijuana and rain.

 

My windows and doors are open.  A storm approaches from California.  Sometime tomorrow, we should have our first rain since November.

We are overcast with winter warmth.  My two cats, and the neighbor’s, are playing tag in the wind.

Throughout the yard and house.

 

I woke to the question.

What Is Life?

Black Uhuru asks.

 

 

Something about this song speaks to me.

The experience of life is framed by contrasting interpretations.

The positive and the negative are both constants.

The choice is where to focus.

I need to eat dinner. But, this reminds me.

Last night, I followed-up, what I wrote in my journal, about where-to-eat-dinner, by eating-dinner at Chillie’s.  Is that what I imagine I wrote?

 

I had the flatbread, a holographic-image of my hunger.  And a beer.

Home before ten.

 

Bed before two.  Just after one.

I thought I had cleared, my belching, before sleep.

But there was this one, final, statement on-dinner.

It haunted my morning.

 

It startled me.  I was choking.

I was awake.  And, I was aware.

I was choking.

 

I have been here before.  Believe me.

It’s annoying, when it happens, now.

 

So I recognized the presence-of-mind I was in.  Gradually, when these things happen.

Usually, after a food-combination, not conducive-to-sleep.

I am calmer, with each, stupid, incident.

 

Today, this morning, just before five.

I had the presence of mind to pray, to Meta-Mind.

For calm.

 

I sat.

Up, in bed.  Eyes closed.

Strange and true.

 

My inability-to-inhale contained a calm.

I just had to wait this out.

I just needed to meditate on the experience.

 

Breathing will resume….  Any minute, now.

 

My fault.

Eating breaded-goodness, with beer, before dreams.

A poetic, yet realistic, statement.

A foundation, for Conscious-Writing.

Conscious-Writing is Conscious-Thinking.

 

The above-two-lines should be written on my blog as, a poetic, yet realistic, statement.

That could be the title.

The words, trailing the first comma, of the first sentence, of this stanza.

 

Realistic, in the sense that.

If Know-One is doing it, someone should.

 

That someone should be me, because.

There seems to be, a need-in-the-field.

Of Conscious-Awareness.

 

But, if Someone is doing it, then I should first join.

Discover what they think.

 

Responses would be welcomed.