Fear and Forgiveness

The opening of a field... That's a poem by Robert Duncan. I think. I'm not even going to try and be "writerly" or "clever" or "thoughtful" today. I am worried, I guess. Or manufacturing worry out of all the opportunities around me. It's not boredom exactly. Just an arrow looking for a target. I must aim myself at something or someone. And yet, if you were to give me a specific task, even one that I ostensibly enjoyed. I would reject it. I wish I could write like Anne Boyer. How does she do it? How much confidence, discipline, ego, desire does one have to muster to write so confidently, at such depth of thought? I don't think I can muster that intensity for that long in myself. Today seems set up by distraction. Like I had hold of a creative thread just a few days ago but now it's vanished. Some small imp of a "muse" left my shoulder. Confidence is optimism. And Optimism is... what do I mean by that? Optimism and self-confidence are the same because they stem from a belief in a positive outcome. A strong belief that I will be ok in this moment, at this task is optimism. Whatever. This isn't going in a productive vein. I have so many writing ideas when I'm not writing! It's so frustrating. I lost the groove for one day. I suppose this is totally normal. I always tend to think that once something is not going well, that's it, it's over. But I dismiss things too easily. Have too little faith. I also shouldn't be so hard on myself. I have to keep reminding myself what that even looks like. What does the inner critic in me even say? It all sounds like the reasonable truth. I think the fear of writing and lack of confidence is because I'm ashamed of myself and feel like a phony. Like no one but me knows what a fraud I am. How false I feel to the world is directly correlated to this inability to express myself. What do I mean by that? I mean, that I can't write or be creative because being creative, especially writing, to me, means that you are showing yourself to the world. And that must be authentic. And if you lie in life that's one thing, but you can't like in your art. Or you can't make art through the part of yourself that is a lie. I see others writing as a form of authentic soul-bearing. They are showing that they are not (entirely) ashamed of themselves. They are not afraid to reveal at least a part of themselves. Trust and patience with yourself. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. I forgive You.  This is what Elizabeth Gilbert means! Forgiveness and fearlessness go hand in hand. What do I mean by that? When I couldn't ride a bike as a kid because of my wobbly sense of balance, I felt *so Bad* about myself. So ashamed. I couldn't "pass"like a "normal" kid. And there was no one who could help me. That just made it worse. I figured it out on my own, through diligent practice in the driveway one summer afternoon out of sheer determination. Back and forth, back and forth, lifting my feet of the ground and onto the pedals for a second, then longer and longer each time. Starting to feel glimmers of what the balance of the two wheels really *felt* like. The magic of lift off, if you will, was indeed like learning to fly, to use your wings for the first time. I was and still am proud that I taught myself. But that lingering feeling of knowing that I am not capable in some way of doing things like others, of running or even buttoning clothes or zipping coats or riding bikes, is a legacy from my childhood that haunts me. There's a kind of hiding/shame that that produced that also leads to feelings of inauthenticity and thus paralysis. And the desire to copy others who are what I deem superior to me. To figure out how to pass. The high standards I set for myself are due to that need to compare myself to the "best" If I ca't be a star I want to be nothing. How can I just let myself be the moderately talented. I am not Anne Boyer. I will probably (for sure) never be as successful, at least in writing. But I can be creative in writing for myself and learn to enjoy that. I still don't think I've accessed the inner voice that they discuss in Writing Proprioceptively yet. Man,  I am really scared of failure. Of revealing my inadequacies. I hide a lot. A lot of things and therefore, a lot of myself.   I have to be fearless enough to have discipline and kind enough to let what comes be a process that I trust. Optimism ='s confidence. Confidence is optimism that I am ok. It's so simple and banal. So what!