First, yesterday’s stupid video.

This five minute limit shit has got to go. Yeah, I know, I should be learning to be less voluble and more succinct. Felicity says the videos should be less than four minutes long, and she is probably right.

But a deep part of me resists attempts to cut down the amount of noise in my signal because it does not trust that it can be done without loss of signal. And I treasure my signal, as many writers do.

We shouldn’t. Murder your darlings and all that. But we do.

And I am a person with a lot to say. I may ramble through the brambles when I am trying to say it, but still. I have billions of words inside me and they all want out. It’s very hard for me to pick and choose among them.

There’s that option paralysis again.

Still, in my own way, I strive towards focus. I have always wanted to be the kind of author who can produce tight, polished prose that uses the minimum amount of words to get the story across so that you forget you are reading a story and become completely immersed in it. The best writing can do that and it makes that writing so much more powerful.

And as a writer, I want to really reach people. I want to touch their hearts, not just their minds. I want to write things that cut through the background noise of everyday reality and give people the sense that there is more to life than the everyday business of living.

In fact, I want to write prose so good, it makes people feel like they’ve been in contact with something greater than themselves.

When it comes to art, my ambition is limitless. Martin Luther changed the world with words. So can I.

And obviously, I am not going to get there if I continue to do things in the sloppy slap-dash way I have been doing them. And yet, the resistance to taking my time and then cleaning up after is very strong. So I definitely will not be able to transform myself into a monster prose machine overnight.

I keep talking about the same damn things, don’t I? Fuck. I don’t edit my work. Option paralysis. I should really start sending things out. Water imagery. Yadda yadda ya.

I’m getting as bad as Garth.

And what I find frustrating is that it makes me feel like I never really make progress. I’m just the same old dog on the same old leash, walking in circles around his tiny little yard and pretending like I am getting somewhere.

But I can’t afford to think like that. I know I am not the same person who sat at this computer a year ago. I know that I am growing in strength and losing mental dead weight all the time. This very blog is part of that process.

It’s just that the growth is so slow and steady that it’s like trying to watch a tree grow. (Note : not water imagery!)

On a staggeringly unrelated topic, today I found out that Oliver Sack is gay.

Or at least, I think I did. I feel like maybe I learned it before then forgot it. But either way, I was floored.

And saddened. Because of the era he grew up in, his love life was very sad. There was a guy he fell in love with in college. A real alpha ideal kind of guy. Smart, athletic, handsome, the whole package.

And they were good friends, and Sacks would give the guy backrubs (!!), and then one day Sacks went just a little too far, and the guy said “I like you but I’m not that way.”

And for a little while, they were still friends, but after this Alpha Ideal dude came to Sacks because he was worried about a problem with his groin (!!!), and Sacks quickly found that there was something very wrong that was probably really serious, Sacks never saw Alpha Ideal again.

Years later, he meets another guy, a sailor, who also liked bodybuilding and such (fun fact : Sacks was once a champion weightlifter), and they moved in together. And they had a lot of fun and were best friends and all was well and good until Sacks once more went over the line, and then the guy got up, showered, then told Sacks that he couldn’t live with him any more, and left forever.

So Sacks, the brilliant and sensitive doctor, gave up on having people in his life.

Holy fuck that’s harsh.

Luckily, the story has a happy ending. He met someone, they grew closer over time, and then one day this other fellow confesses his love for Sacks in like, the most British way possible : “I have conceived a great affection for you. ”

Isn’t that adorable? Nerd love rules.

What else… feeling super lazy today. Don’t really feel like doing a video after this. But if you want to establish a habit, then the most important time to do it is when you least want to do it.

So I will make a vid of some sort tonight. And I will try to put a little extra ambition into it. But no guarantees.

I had a pretty good groove going earlier today, listening to podcasts while playing a logic game on my tablet. Not the most productive pair of activities, but it kept this overgrown brain of mine busy enough for me to relax, and those times are precious to me.

My whole life, I have had more brain than I knew what to do with. I think that’s part of why I can be very quick to create limitations or compulsions in my life. Their real purpose is to limit my horizons and thus keep me from realizing how goddamned bored I am.

The cows were quiet and pliable until they got a whiff of all the fresh grass outside their pen. After that, some of them were angry and wanted to leave.

But other were angry at the breeze that brought them the news of the wonders of the outside world.

They had been happy before. Or if not happy, content. They liked being content. Or at least…. they were content with it.

But that stupid breeze had to come along and ruin everything by reminding them of how little they had.

They named that breeze Satan.

I will talk to you people again tomorrow.