Anticipation and a Center - 1/23/2014

So the anticipation of this has become surprisingly pleasant. I've started blogs and serial writing projects before, but they've always petered out one way or another. They all involved plans and structure, and became more than I wanted to do even before I started them. I must remember that improvisation is my greatest strength.

Funny how things work better when you play to your strengths instead of trying to break your weaknesses.

That brings an image to mind, about how to think of weakness in terms of mentality and personality. Instead of seeing something as less, I suddenly see it as a wall, or a chasm. Not something where I am simply less practiced, limping along, but something over which I must build a bridge or a ladder if I wish to cross that way. Or work my way around the edges until I am past. An interesting notion.

And that, perhaps, is the purpose of writing this way. Not to accomplish a goal such as a treatise on the nature and devices of fiction as they relate to game design (one of my planned projects), but to wander. To find the edges of those parts of me that might be useful, if I could figure out how to get around them and make them work the way that I do. To find interesting notions, simply because there must be something to talk about, and make them something more than interesting notions at some point.

And on that note, I include something that I've posted elsewhere, that at least one person has told me is useful to her. It is a litany, to be spoken when times are difficult. I wrote it recently when I had a depressive episode, and it has come to be very powerful for me. Speaking it reminds me of my true situation, and helps me to fend off the emotions of the moment. It becomes centering, calming and a source of strength. I offer to you to take it and use it as you see fit, except that is is not to be sold (in other words, a no-commercial-use Creative Commons license).

I ride the wave

It does not ride me

I live my life so that, when the waves come, they are few and far between

I live my life so that I catch the waves, and they do not catch me

I live my life so that, when the wave is passed, I have no regrets

I listen to myself

I interrupt the negative thought patterns

The cycles that pull me down

I am mindful that my perceptions, my understandings, my expectations

Are not those of other people

I am mindful that I decide

Always

Whether to speak or act

I am mindful that I am not being driven

I drive

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