Day 219: Failing forwards

Home from work. What do I feel like inside? I feel like dust and emptiness and garbage. And what does that feel like? Mmmmmm. It feels horrible. OK, and what does that “horrible” feel like? … Uhhhnnnn. Hmmm. Well, no, I feel... panic and stress and exhaustion, I guess. Why panic? Because I haven’t done a blog post and it’s so late and I need to get to bed and I’ll stay up and ruin tomorrow trying to write something tonight that no one will read anyway and I’m grinding myself to the bone and this isn’t healthy and I can’t sustain it…

OK. Woosh. So… why not just end the blog post here then, I’ve done a few words, why not post it up and go to bed?

Because I have a responsibility, and I have to try, even though I’m not living up to it.

Is that the panic? Maybe. That I’m striving so hard to produce so little of worth. That I’m struggling and kicking so hard just to keep from drowning, and barely any energy can go into, like… what I am able to shout when my mouth is above the surface of the water. The writing is so…

No. I’m not sure that’s true.

I don’t want to post up what little I’ve got and go to bed because… because I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to be seen as a failure. I want to write until I have something impressive to show for myself.

Ung, that’s so ugly. But it is true. What did Eugene Gendlin say?

“What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.”

I’m afraid of failure. I’m terrified of failure. Maybe to such an extent that it is getting in the way of my ability to be successful.

So... why not try failing, on purpose, with a glad heart, and see what happens? Just write a really crappy post, the crappiest, the loosest, shortest...

… Although, well... In teasing out that idea I’ve now written a respectable amount… and I’ve got the Gendlin quote in there, that added some intellectual cachet. And I guess the whole striving-to-fail idea is a kind of cutting of the Gordian Knot, which isn't very much like failure at all.

Wait. Am I feeling disparaged by that? By the fact that even my attempt to fail is failing? Jeez. Self-defeating much? If the post is a success then it’s a success, and that’s great. And if it’s a failure than I get to fail on purpose, and explore my fears, and conquer them, and that’s great.

Everything is great!

Phew. Glad I got that sorted out.

......

Music? Music. Uhh. Singularity, by Jon Hopkins. I love Hopkins’ 2013 album Immunity, full of glitchy and driving and transcendent ambient-techno wonders. This new single… Yeah. I like it. I prefer the opening moments, brooding and oppressive, to where it ends up. Maybe less insistent than the stuff on Immunity, but maybe it’s the kind of thing best reserved for a full album coming through your headphones as you pace unknown city streets in the depths of night, as opposed to highlighting one song as a video on YouTube. I shall listen more.