mind of mencius

Flowing water is such that it does not go forward until it has filled all the hollows. A Gentleman, in his pursuit of the Way, does not get there unless he achieves a beautiful pattern.[i]

I spend two hours a day writing and 8 hours a day worrying about not writing. When I set out to write a piece for menci.us[ii], I’m afraid–afraid I’ve lost the knack[iii], afraid of what will happen if I stop and afraid of finding out it doesn’t matter anyway. The constant worry, the suspicion that the well of words inside me is dry, drives me back to the page and the writing and the belief that if I don’t exorcise the terrible master I’ll implode.

All stilted and arrhythmic, filling a page from the faucet without a washer, spraying words about the sink and largely missing my target. Without nuance or glamour or sensibility or emotion, in thirty minutes I fill pages with ideas that litter my brain. In less than thirty seconds I erase more than half. And again, now rearranging here and editing there, adding and littering and shitting onto the page without regard for tense or style. Words are words are words are words: only later they become something more, something meaningful.

Or not… most will waste away in folders scattered across my hard drive. In ten years I might read them and laugh. Were I dedicated to my ideas and strong enough to endure the pain of serious self-edits, the quality[iv] of my writing would increase twofold–because I know that within the banished, half-finished brain hairs of my work in lost folders lie more than a few excellent ideas.

Finishing has never been my strong suit. And it worries me. Mencius writes of water, of filling all spaces before flowing onward, as the Gentleman’s pursuit of the Way. That is Ideal.[v]

I am beginning to fill more of the spaces in my life, so that I can move forward. And I want to move there, beyond the hollows of my self into something bigger. Writing is a large part of that, as are You. But there are so many  crevices of bad habit and poor work ethic that I struggle to fill. I suspect that I will never fill these hollows alone.

There is a long way to go and I need a lot of help. Which is why I am asking…

1. Mencius VII.A.24|↩|
2. no one seems to be paying me to do much else lately|↩|
3. or that I never had it to begin with|↩|
4. and more likely, the quantity|↩|
5. That Ideal is fucking elusive.|↩|