so little to say
3 minute read
This is one of those weeks that I find myself with very little to say.
The first printed edition of The Life Compass arrived, and, true to form, I was dissatisfied.
It wasn't bad. In fact, it was better than okay. But in this context, for me right now, okay isn't good enough.
There is a question that has a perch in the room where I write. It peers down at me, the song it sings is about knowing when to stop.
"Not yet," I tell it. "Not yet."
This book, this Life Compass, was only ever intended to be a gathered set of notes: the 16 foundation principles of the REVIVER program.
It was only intended to be a script, something to help focus my thoughts for re-recording the free training with, because, that too, could be better.
What this book has become, what it is still in the process of becoming, I'm not yet sure.
A tool to navigate yourself and the world? Yes. It is that, in part.
It will serve the explorer in you, after all, we are all travellers on life's path.
But we are instruments too.
And when we play in tune there is a harmony to be had from life. And in that harmony there is a resonant frequency that grows, that feeds itself, that multiplies with the same amount of effort.
It would be nice to think that we could live there all the time. Perhaps we can. But I don't think that's the point. There are moments to shine and moments for silence, and if music is anything it is in the pauses between the notes.
Some bells echo for a very long time after they have been struck.
So, at the time I'm writing this I am taking a break from rewriting a chapter of The Life Compass, because I want it to be better. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it wants to be better, and I'm doing my best to help it get there.
How far do you go when the work calls you to it?
Personally I'm not one for living in compromised truth. The cost of regret feels too heavy a weight to bear. Instead, I suffer the work instead, which, while uncomfortable, remains free of regret.
On some days, effort and discomfort is all it seems there is.
The notion that creativity spills out in inspired focus is not wrong. It can be like that. Some passages flow out of me as if formed in the mind of a wiser being than I. Yet this seems only to be the case once I have sat for hours in intense bouts of concentration, sometimes agonising over the choice of a single word.
1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, or so the quote goes.
While it was intended for genius I think the same applies to creativity.
If this is what it takes, then this is what it takes.
The romantic in me waits for those moments of inspiration when everything flows. They are gifts that are a wonder to channel.
The rest of me strives and perseveres, struggles and endures.
And somewhere within, near the edge of a shadow, there is still a part of me that thinks I should be better, faster, more accomplished. It measures my efforts and compares me to standards far beyond my own.
"Do you really think you have what it takes?" It asks.
"I think," I say, trying to treat it with the respect that it deserves, "that I have the perseverance to find out."
"We'll see," It says.
"Yes," I say. "We will."
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