Striving for a Life of Discontent
“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
I am a writer. I think you all probably know that by now. However, did you know that I am a write that feeds off of negative emotion, drama, and discontent? When things are quiet, I have a hard time writing (at least, writing creatively). You will see big swaths of time in the past where I haven’t written a blog. Why? Because I am numb and content with being numb. Everything is going okay in my life (I have shelter, a job, healthy kids, etc), I’m not fighting a cause, and there’s no drama. So, what in the hell am I going to write about?
That is probably my downfall. I can write fiction, but I haven’t done it in years. Everything has either been poetry or nonfiction. My poetry is fairly abstract, and my nonfiction is about me…and I’ve become pretty boring.
I mean, the last two years….whew!…there was some drama and discontent. I went through the whole getting married thing, and then I went through losing my sister, and I went through the breakup of my marriage — all in two years. But, now…as I near the one year anniversary of my sister’s death, things have settled down tremendously in my life.
And how do I know they have settled down tremendously? Because I’m thinking of a way to shake things up again. I want to move to a different state. I want to become a nomad. I want to pull my kids out of traditional schooling and travel the country living in my car. I want to put my hand in the fire — something to make things different and interesting. I want to do something that causes me to feel something again. Anything.
Ever since my sister passed away, I feel like all of the emotion has been sucked out of life, and I have become this numb person. Not really happy, but not really sad. Just existing, and fairly content with that existence. This contentment with being numb is not something I want to continue. I want to begin to feel again, even if those feelings are negative. And somehow, some way, I will live my erratic life of discontent again. It will mean I am moving forward. It will mean I can write again. It will mean that I am no longer stuck.
It will just take time.
