To The Blank Page

Remorse, they say, for the opportunities lost to you, for they’ll never be afforded to you again. Believing their fatalistic and narrow-minded view, remorse you do. There’s so many opportunities in a persons life they pass up because they cannot appreciate the beautiful fragility of that moment which will haunt them. This is a lesson that can only be learned the hard way. Until you break free from a finite mind state, I’d imagine such opportunities would continue to haunt you.

On the same side of that token, you cannot spend your life chasing down opportunities trying to make them right. This does not mean that it shouldn’t be done however, as moderation is, as always, the key.

Opportunities drive stories. We forget that, like the characters in a novel, we are living a story every day. Each day its own novel of thoughts, emotions, sights, smells, and experiences. Each week a compendium of its constituent days, and the over-arching story they form. Each month the anthology of its weeks. Each year an archive of the months, and each lifetime a library of stories that make up who you are as a person. We are shaped by our experiences, just as our decisions shape the course of our life. In this same vein, one can say the opportunities afforded a person also shape your life, as the choices made in each instance can forever alter your timeline.

This is why opportunities are so precious. This is why we value them as we do. This is why the fatalistic view of the world came to be; the rare circumstance that combine in this chaotic world to bring about an event that corroborates with our situation and our tastes, and preferences, and ideals. This is why opportunities lost can cause so much misery; why remorse can ruin a life, just as much as a single opportunity could change a life for the better.

Opportunities, even the possibility of, can drive us to great lengths. The beauty of life is that for every missed opportunity, a new opportunity takes its place. A missed opportunity can be like a miracle though, in the end it forces you to grow. It challenges you to become better, and be prepared for the next opportunity.

Writing is not, by any means, easy. The act itself can be accomplished simply by picking up a pen or pencil and paper, or booting up a word processor. Whatever comes to mind, and is recorded, is considered to have  been written. Quality aside, context disregarded, writing can be simply stringing letters into words.

Striving for anything more, the expectations, the anxiety over quality, it can often times be debilitating.

I’ve got so much time but I can’t find the words to put down while filling that time. There’s so many words  lurking, I can tell, within my mind. Names, places, images, events, they pass through my imagination like ghosts through a wall. Seemingly without limit, they continually pass by.

Some ideas linger. They shake my mind, they can sometimes possess me. My fingers vibrate, yearning for the touch of the key, or the embrace of a pencil.

Like trying carry water in my hands, the ideas just slip between my fingers until all that is left is the moisture in the creases of my palms. I can lap at it, I can get a taste, but once that taste is done, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t savor the flavor. I don’t stop to get a true image of what I’ve experienced, what I’ve created, or what I’ve written. In the end, the flavor is lost and so has the interest.

How do I put the fear behind me? How do I find the strength to stay and write, to push through the fear, the doubt, the fog of war. How do I convince myself I’m good enough, when I can’t give others the opportunity to do so as well.

I know I can do it. There’s a feeling inside me, there’s a beast that lurks within my breast, it infects me with the knowledge that I can do it. It’s a passion that, only in rare cases, can be tapped in to. Like the magicians of the stories in my mind, I must learn to channel that passion, shape it with my imagination, and record it to completion through dedication.

It wasn’t until I decided to become a writer, that I’ve encountered issues I never thought I would. I find comfort in my respect for writing. I’m determined to see this to completion even if it means I must struggle. The only failure, is the failure to try. Even if I don’t ever finish a novel, or get published, I’ll always have the experience.