About Cliffs and Cowardice
Post 203:
It’s never been in my constitution to leap without looking. If I was standing on a cliff top with my buddies in my younger years, peering down at the water below, it was always someone else that jumped first. I’d need a moment’s thought, a little time for self-doubt, and then, after all that, off I would go.
Everyone has their own particular makeup. There was the one guy who bypassed all the what-if’s and leapt, a few like me, and a few that just said to heck with it and didn’t go at all.
Some say a little bit of fear is a good thing. In some circumstances, I suppose it is. That said, being afraid never sat well with me. Some would argue that shame from fear is not a bad thing at all, just a made-up social contrivance concocted by men with too much testosterone.
Eh. Not so sure.
It sucks to be afraid. Especially when you know it’s all going to be okay and you feel the fear anyway. That cliff we were jumping off wasn’t going to kill us; we’d known a bunch of kids that lived to tell the tale.
I’d like to say that now that I’m an adult, the cliff-diving portion of my life is over.
It’s so not over.
Yeah, the cliffs are all metaphorical now, but there’s still a slew of leaps to make. Pretty much daily. And here’s me, still letting that mustard seed of reflection atrophy my actions as I peek over the edge.
When I decided to be a musician, it scared me. I did it, but I’d be lying if the calculator in my noggin wasn’t working overtime. In the end, I suppose it was brave to follow my gut and ignore the calculator, but really, the jury’s still out.
Then I decided to write novels. Talk about a cliff. This is a whole new deal. It makes me want to go back to jumping off actual cliffs. If you’re trying to write anything good, every page, every word is a chance to screw up.
But you can’t live like that. You can’t work like that. You do the best you can, and you go for it.
Sometimes it takes years to really let big truths sink into your brain. The other night I was going over this massive list of words that I’m committing to memory and poring over an old classic piece of Russian literature. This is for hours and hours. Suppose I could be out having some beers and playing darts, but no, just literature and more frigging words.
And it dawned me. I do the best I can most of the time; my work is the product of countless hours of creating and reformatting and learning from sometimes agonizing mistakes. (I love it, btw, so I’m not complaining)
All that work. But when it comes to offering all that work to people, I get nervous. Afraid, even. Not that people won’t like it, though that’s certainly possible—no, I’m afraid that folks will think I’m coming off as a beggar or someone asking for a favor.
This is beyond idiotic. I went inside my mind to find how in the hell it’s wrong to offer something that you’ve put your heart and mind into. The wrong doesn’t exist. Yes, writing is subjective, so it’s a little more complicated, but not really. If I’ve done what I can, all I can, there’s no shame in telling people to pick up a copy. Folks sell stuff and folks buy stuff. I have no idea where I got the idea that I could live outside of that reality.
The fear is born more out of stupidity than cowardice. It’s something in my soul that needs work. More leaping, less looking. The water might sting a bit, but I seem to always recall laughing as I swam back to shore.
See you after.
