If I was truly committed to this
writing thing I would stop watching television, stop playing stupid waste of
time nonsense video games (anything that ends with the suffix –ville) and focus
on reading and writing and exercising my brain (and it probably wouldn’t hurt
me to exercise my body as well), but I can’t.
Television is so easy and awesome and I don’t want to miss anything
(plus it is probably the only thing my wife and I have in common). Reading is hard (everything distracts me). Writing is hard (much harder than I thought
it would be). I’m never inspired at
convenient times either. I’ve discovered
about myself that just getting the basic ideas down isn’t always enough for me
later because I’m not in that same mood when I actually sit down to write. How does anyone with a job, family, Xbox, and
television addiction ever become a writer?
These are all things that I should have gotten around to after I became
successful enough to have a quiet place to spend my day writing and not being
pestered by employees (at home on my cell phone), coworkers (also, at home on
my cell phone), wife, kids, other family members, TV, and pretty much life in
general. It’s too late for all of that now, though.
Sometimes I look at my kids and
they say (the big one) or do (the little one) amazing things and all I can
think is that they are leaching my talent away from me. That’s probably not how it works though, it
is? They’re just young and they have
that thing that I used to have, what’s it called? Oh yeah, imagination. I guess you just lose that over time as you “grow
up” to become an “adult” or whatever. I
don’t want to be an adult; I don’t want to be mature and responsible. I want to have those sparks of weird
creativity that I used to have without overanalyzing everything. I don’t want to think about whether it’s been
done before, if it makes sense, or even if it’s entertaining to anyone besides
me. I feel like my psyche is slipping
away from me. I feel like every day I’m
fighting my way back from the precipice of full on depression.
I need to make a change in my life,
in my way of thinking, I need to either pursue this thing full on, whether it
be good or bad, do it or just give it up and be happy with my lot in life. I watch these people come to work and they
are excited. They’re excited to have a job, excited to be a valued member of
this place and society in general, excited to see their coworkers, and excited
to just talk about their weekends and whatever’s going on with them outside of
here. I want that. I want to just be happy and be the best
whatever I do here possible, but there’s this idea that’s holding me back. This tiny flicker in the back of my brain
that says that I’m better than this, that I’m better than this place, that I absolutely
should not settle on this, but that tiny flicker hasn’t gotten me anything but
a deep depression so I need to shut it up.
This was not something I intended
to write when I woke up this morning and I don’t have a conclusion at this
point. Sorry
Eric Anderson
