The shape of anxiety
Posted on | May 4, 2007 |
There comes a point when habit pulls me here, to this place where I tell myself stories about the things I cannot do. Invariably after a week of rising early, making coffee, and touching my fingers to the keys, following words about where they will travel at dawn, my mind becomes like a child terrified of the monster under her bed.
This week, more than anything else, I have been watching my thoughts as I wake up and stumble like Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase into the moment of the present, with my mind and body disjointed in a hundred little ways. I’ve realized that without any intention I put a great deal of effort into constructing thoughts that cut me off at the knees. I tell myself: you don’t know anything about fiction writing. And, you don’t have time to really produce anything worth publishing. And, I suck at this, what am I possibly thinking? And six or ten thoughts later I’m in a tailspin writing incoherent mutterings.
But this week I’ve been trying stubbornly to not listen. Trying, being the operative word, of course. Have you ever noticed how damn hard it is not to listen to your negative thoughts, and instead tune to the positive ones? I feel like I’m almost hardwired to tune in to these thoughts, like a freaking hand-made transistor radio that can only pick up a one station. I buy my own bullshit ninety-eight percent of the time, hook, line and sinker. And then I sit down to write, and it’s a wonder I still remember all twenty-six letters, let alone how to construct a few sentences that reflect any small piece of how my heart moves.
But that is the reason I write. The reason you write. The reason we both read. Because writing is an act of turning our inner ear towards the divine breath of creativity that moves across the harp strings of our hearts, and turning that other-worldly song into words; opens our hearts, so that when someone else reads strings of their own heart resonate in recognition. Writing then, becomes something huge. Words have the immense capacity to reach across the divide between individuals, and to inhabit the private spaces in our hearts and minds from whence new ideas spring. The stories we choose to tell shape us.
Maybe this is all very obvious, but the trolly part of me that crouches in the corner of my mind and repeats idiotically a mantra of fear really needs to hear this today. So as I sit down to write this morning, my windowsill cluttered with jars of brushes, I grab a the most recent Sun and find this, by John O’Donohue:
Fear is the greatest source of falsification in life. It makes the real seem unreal, and the unreal to appear real. In The Courage To Be the theologian Paul Tillich draws a distinction between fear and anxiety. Anxiety for him, is this diffuse worry that has no object or point of reference. This is the atmosphere in the U.S., the land of the free and the home of the brave. There is a huge anxiety just down under the surface.
Fear, as distinct from anxiety, has an object and a point of reference. Tillich says that in order to handle anxiety, you have to translate it into a fear that has a definite object. Then you can engage with it. Part of the intention of growth is to overcome one’s fears.
It makes so much sense I almost laugh out loud, my hearstrings thrumming. What if I pushed farther? What if I tried to narrow the huge anxiety I have about writing, especially about writing fiction, into a fear that I can grow past? What if? I’m not there yet, but it’s a good point to launch from.
Do you have wide anxieties or pointed fears? Is there a false story you tell yourself again and again unthinkingly? What is stopping you from accomplishing the things you dream of?
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8 Responses to “The shape of anxiety”
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May 4th, 2007 @ 8:42 am
That whole paragraph that starts with “But that is the reason I write” has a punch like a hammer. In a good way. Tell that trolly part of your brain to shut up and sit down, you’ve got writing to do!
May 4th, 2007 @ 8:44 am
In writing your biggest critic will ALWAYS be yourself. And it’s your own internal critic that can keep you from writing. I am published, and pushed to write more by others, but that little doubtful critic always points her finger at me and tells me I have NO RIGHT to pass off my drivel as anything worth reading.
You have to teach yourself to only listen to the critic when you want to HEAR from the critic. She has her place, I determine where that place is.
My little critic, I visualize her with duct tape over her mouth until I choose to free her words. Then, and only then, will I listen to her, and it’s always heard with a gigantic boulder of salt.
May 4th, 2007 @ 9:59 am
the ‘reason i write’ paragraph is among the best string of sentences i’ve read. which is deliciously ironic (and hopefully a sweet counter to -) given your own internal monologue. my own fears? i answered your question in my own blog entry today, without even having read it first
May 4th, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
What timing for this post… I am just now rising out of the ashes of anxiety. This past February I was questioning everything: do I stay in the teaching profession, will they keep me anyway, should I chase after my MFA, am I good enough anyway, etc.? It was like a running ticker in my mind and the anxiety would swallow me up, leaving me gasping for breath.
But now, only a few months later, choices made for me, I am looking forward to being present to each moment as it passes, and to make decisions that work toward goals, but the goals aren’t what I’m chasing. I suppose it’s some kind of inner peace, inner calm. Enjoying the journey, being here now.
So I don’t think this is helpful to you, except to know when to allow the critic out and when to celebrate. Writer’s groups always help me and the most–time. Letting a piece sit on a windowsill for a day, a week, a month, maybe two, and coming back with fresh eyes. But also: having faith that one day I will write something truly remarkable, and until then, I’m always warming up, always enjoying the freedom and the pleasure of that warmth.
May 4th, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
I have read that O’Donohue article so many times since that issue of The Sun arrived last month! I know so well how easy it is to get trapped in that inner-fear dialogue - it can be so paralyzing. But I love his line “the intention of growth is to overcome one’s fears.” That is what we are all trying to do in the end anyway is grow, be less afraid, live. Fear is just the jumping off point for a life that can grow a little taller with a push and shove. Thanks for the reminder - you can’t hear this stuff enough!
May 4th, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
I like to think of fear as a boundary marker, an indicator, as it were, of the breadth and depth, the reach of my soul. When I encounter fear — of anything: of doing another parkour move; or finishing the 80-page narrative poem I’ve been working on in a voice I’ve never heard before; or getting that damned novel done, despite the conviction it’s not worthwhile — no matter what the encounter, I find myself glad of it, happy for it, because the fear defines who I am, so I can know myself, and, thereby, know what I can become. Tillich echoes what I’ve learned from centuries of sages: to expand the soul, to live richly and fully, I must face the fear, name it, and so make it part of me. Thereby — and only so — are the boundaries of my soul extended.
May 5th, 2007 @ 12:38 am
although part of this mortal coil and it’s every drama i fear inadequate to tell of my condition. my simple words and sentences pause and stumble. i feel with depth but only i know it. rare divine inspirations that transcend my normal condition only tease me that there might be something tucked away that i must pursue to reveal. i fear that i am only able to recognize art. then i convince myself that when i am touched by others words it is what i have brought to the table, my perceptions. it is that communion between greatness and me which is required. so i languish in the audience.
May 5th, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
I strongly encourage you to continue writing whatever your heart desires. Your words have added enrichment to many of my days, days that have required leaps over the stumbling blocks of fear . . . much thanks.