Jesus, I am getting tired of talking about myself.

I really am. I am not sure what that “means”. It would be easy to just be flip about it and say “I guess I am so boring I even bore myself, ha ha” or be superficial and say “do anything enough and you get bored with it, no need to look any further”. And that is probably part of it.

But I think part of it is artistic as well. My desire to write something bigger and better than the daily drivel (hey, that’s what I should call this blog!) is growing stronger and stronger every day. I am hoping that is a good thing, that it will be the impetus for the next stage of evolution of myself as a writer. I can already feel myself growing stronger in important ways, and I am hoping that soon I will be strong enough to start teaching myself to edit my own works and not be stuck in First Draft City.

That would be a major advancement in my so-called writing career. I could finally produce polished, professional works that impress people, instead of the flawed gems I produce now.

Of course, it would be even more helpful if I produced them more often. It saddens me that I do all this writing every day but produce nothing of worth. Just a whole lot of emotional expectoration, which admittedly probably has great therapeutic use, but still feels futile to me.

And you know what would really help with my recovery? Money! Earned income, better lifestyle, a sense of accomplishment and pride, a feeling that I really am worth something to the world.

I bet that would do wonders to improve my mood.

And of course, that would involve getting my shit together (I have widely scattered shit, I really should get that looked at by a professional) enough to get all my stories together in one place, pick some markets, and start sending my stuff out there on a rota. Market A does not want Story A? Then off it goes to Market B, and so on down the list, until every story has been to every market.

And if I manage to do all that without getting a sale, well, I will just have to write more stuff to keep the process going, right?

Then there’s that book I wrote last November. Remember that? Me neither, most of the time. But I have written a book, dammit. And I wrote it in 25 days, which ain’t half bad. I proved, when doing the Million Word Year, that I can write a heck of a lot of words per day if so inclined. I could be a highly prolific author if I could just focus all that creative energy and urge to write into something that might get published somewhere.

I could be a real Man of Letters. We are talking Asimov level of output.

But alas, I just do not have my poop in a group enough for that yet. I still spend a lot of every day doing pointless things, despite my growing dissatisfaction with fucking around with video games and online chat and so on.

I guess I am in the painful place between the desire for change, and change. The dissatisfaction with all my dissipation will just have to grow and grow until it forces the change to happen, and because it has such an enormous force of habit to overcome, and the inertia of my entire adult life fighting against it, it is going to be a titanic struggle and even if the forces of good win, it is going to take a hell of a lot out of me in the process.

I wish it could be easier. I wish I could just say to myself “I know this resistance is wrong, ergo, BEGONE!” and it would just disappear. But knowing something is true does not make one instantly believe it, not even for a rugged mountaintop hermit of a philosopher like myself.

There is a big difference between knowing truth, and believing it. It is entirely possible to know the right answer and give it on demand, but not really believe it. Knowledge is thought. Belief is emotion. You can know it is true but not feel its truth.

And without the feeling, the knowledge will not last that long. Your mind will resolve the conflict by changing what you believe to match how you feel.

Yes, even you, you tough minded, hard nosed intellectual, you. Especially you. Isn’t knowing the right answer but not believing it just like school, when you were so smart with the answers in class and on the test? To this day, you think, deep down, that finding the right answer and having it on hand should the question arise should be the whole thing. You have the right answer and should be rewarded for that. Actually believing it on an emotional level is strictly optional, and if it conflicts with your internal narrative of self-loathing, well, out it goes, logic evidence and truth be damned, right?

Even if you do keep it around as the “right” answer, you will not deliver it as though it is true. You will say “Well I suppose… ” or “I guess, technically… ” or the like. Only your desire to have the “right” answer and not be caught out in a logical or verbal error keeps this answer in your mind at all. But you make it abundantly clear that you do not really believe it.

Why this gulf between knowing positive truths and your actually believing them? Is your carefully constructed world of self-loathing and depression so precious to you that you would suppress and deny all conflicting information, like you were Fox News talking about Barack Obama?

Rip out the walls between. Let positive emotions in. Be willing to forsake your chilly clarity for the warm tempestuous seas of emotion.

It is the only way out.