PARADOXICAL PARADOX

writing and career finding

Sometimes, i hate doing what i love to do. i'm talking about writing. it takes so much energy, time, and balls. putting yourself out there to be judged - doing that on a daily basis - that is a hard job. no such thing as being low key - everything is out. i wonder if i could make it as a writer. i want to write poetry, but a good quote - "publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for an echo" - discouraging.

when people look for careers, there are three main categories. doing what one loves; doing what is available or what is one capable of; and doing something for money. of course it is perfectly reasonable to say that one loves what one does, is making good money at doing it, and is able - but the chief reason, that reason springs from love. i guess i envy people who can make good money (live relatively comfortably) while doing something they love. the more i think about writing for a living, i realize it is a dream. chasing a dream. like winning the lotto. disheartening. and yet, i feel like it is the job of the writer to suffer. edgar allan poe - bipolar, i tihnk. hemingway - depressed. dickinson - depressed. conrad - probably depressed, or at least a little bit demented and fed up with thehopelessness of our savage selves. steinbeck - definitely depressed, was an alcoholic? i think, along with hemingway. fitzgerald - hopeless romantic, depressed. then there are people like shel silverstein. he looked pretty normal, but lonely. i imagie. sad. searching. the role of a poet is to examine life, "to be astonished at everything." and it is those events that shock us to the core, to those realistic portrayals of life - death, loneliness, infinity, love, heartbreak, and apathy, boredom. the poet mmust come and live like he has never lived before every moment, every breath, swallow. when he falls in love, his love is as high as the himalayas. when he falls out of it, into the depths, he eats the coldness of the mariana's trench. i think that's how you spell it. seven miles or so. the weight of the world comes crashing down. and when you're job is to feel each moment like that, man. most of the time, because i think most of the time life sucks (usually, right?), or if it doesn't suck, it isn't spectacular (imagine feeling extraordinarily normal... that's like being bored, but instead of being bored, you're bored stuck to a chair and not allowed to fidget, and the only thing left is to think about the extremes of life: but we forget the touch of goodness after a while though the sting of badness lingers and is usually more readily associated with.) the poet feels like crap. writes about crap. writes about what he sees wrong with the world. the job of the poet is to fix the world, to tell her her problems. and there are a lot of problems. and yet, at high times, there must be nothing better, than a poet in love. it must feel like a natural drug. when a poet is on drugs, man. that's unheard of. when a poet has sex - please, see a poem called "dirty talk" by rives - it must be better than normal. it is vulgar, but as silversetin said, it's just realistic. and at times like that, i would never want another job. good pay, no pay, sucky life. i don't care. if i have one of these days in every hundred, that day would be worth it. it would be worth it.

funny quote - something along the lines that it is a tragic to know that a poet can make more moeny talking about his art than creating it. hmm... i haven't written in a while. time to let the words speak. soemtimes i wonder why i wrote this down. why i took the last 30 minutes to write this. none of this matters. to anyone, but me. but this is a reminder of why i write poetry. because i can't draw, i can't sing, i can't dance, i can't tell a story correctly. i can write. that is the only way to tell someone the feeling, the moment, while working as hard as the reader. understanding why i write helps me to keep writing. i want to end with something someone said, must be wise. and all i could find in the libraries of my head...

"when she left, the grass was still green, the hills were still rolling, the sky was still blue, the clouds, white, and the air still pleasant - i know. the only difference is, i didn't care, anymore, that they were so."