Another Absence

Change. Change everything you are. And everything you were.


I've been absent from this space again for the past few months. After I finished volunteering for President Obama's re-election campaign - after which he successfully won the state where I worked and won another term in office - I still couldn't find a paying job. I had a few very good opportunities that didn't quite pan out - it was an agonizing time. Since then, I have begun working as an Intern in a Congressional office. I still don't have an income or a sense of security, and my job search is still aggravating. I often feel very unsettled and uncertain.

Tumultuous times are great at producing things that I want to describe in my writing, and abysmal for leaving me time to write about those things that I want to describe.

I have been reconsidering the initial mission of this writing project - such rethinking is unavoidable given my failure until this point to see it through. If I want to succeed in my goal of writing every day, I must change my approach entirely. I still refuse to make any promises - the most likely scenario is that I will break them unabashedly. However, I want to set a new routine. Ideally, I will commit one specific portion of each day to writing in this venue, and I will not spend more than thirty minutes per day writing here. I cannot yield to laziness or to vanity.

I also cannot yield to my sense of perfectionism. Part of the reason I started this project is to increase my ability to be vulnerable in my writing. I want to open the floodgates. I need a space where I don't care what objects, values, or attitudes my thoughts smash along the way. My feelings must be what they are. If I don't like the way I am feeling, at least it will be easier to alter those feelings if I am more familiar with my inclinations. If I don't pay attention to my emotions, it will only be more difficult for me to evolve.

Yesterday, I watched a TED Talk given by Esther Perel. The subject of her speech is "The secret to desire in a long-term relationship". Perel's insights remind me of many things beyond relationship advice: satisfaction at work, satisfaction in friendships, and satisfaction in intellectual curiosity are all navigated in the same perilous and exciting way. These spheres of our lives all depend on the balance between security and discovery - the combination of what you have, and what you want.

This blog, this writing project of mine, is partly a response to that call for a precarious but necessary balancing act. I need a steady outlet to express my reactions as I have them, yet I also feel a burning need to question my understandings of the world -- so I can expand my awareness and find greater satisfaction in my life, as I acquire new ways of finding joy and sympathy in each day.

You've got to be the best. You've got to change the world, and use this chance to be heard.