Dear Invisible Friends,
This is the first blog post I have written for a while. I planned to continuously write when I quit my job back in May 2021 but when the blogging novelty wore off, I abandoned it because writing morphed into a daily grind of another passion project “getting done”. I was also tired of slamming into the walls of my limitations. I wanted to write about X, but the words didn’t come easy. I wanted to draw Y, but nothing appeared on the page. The only feasible explanation was the lack of talent. I assumed that writing should come naturally with ease, and if it doesn’t, then “oh well”, it is not for me. What I failed to recognize is the discomfort I experienced wasn’t the absence of a natural genius, but a sign of growth. I choose to ignore that mastery required consistent practice. Instead of investing more time in persevering in writing and drawing, I indulged myself in new big projects. Starting my company and finding creative ways to teach undergrad biology was straightforward and painless until I stumbled across another annoying skill or knowledge gap. When I did, I moved on and then on again. Soon, I started to suspect foul play. The endless motion and inability to stay with the sameness contradicted my strong desire for creative pursuits that needed to age like a good old wine. It dawned on me that the bouncing from project to project wasn’t an escape from boredom but the perpetual anxiety preying on me for years. It stalked me no matter where I went or what I did, then attacked when I least expected. The true genius of the condition was its chameleon nature. It took unique forms and expressions, quickly adapting when discovered. Once I recognized it in one place, it vanished to occupy another sphere of my life where it generated a new set of problems. In writing, it showed up as avoidance camouflaged as busyness with unnecessary projects and made-up to-dos. Cleaning, shopping, learning…
Does writing these words mean I am no longer a victim of the suffocating tightness in my chest paired with the anticipation of upcoming doom and gloom? Of cause not. As I am typing this sentence I am ruminating on whether or not it is a waste of time or another distraction from the unknown and my internal struggles. I keep asking myself: Why haven’t I written for so long? Why do I squander my time putting words together instead of figuring out how to make some cash? Why do I keep longing to tell my story when nobody listens? The Why questions buzz in my head overpowering the soothing raindrops of the keyboard clicking. They are mechanical; engineered to identify the deficiency and then fix it. They are useful for problem solving but they violate humanity and the mystery of a creative process. The Why questions, in my case, point to anxiety and judgment undercover.
Today I choose the What and Who questions, amorphous and open-ended suitable for exploration and self-expression. The What and Who questions are not concerned with the root cause, instead they are a starting point with infinite routes to unknown endings. This is what the writing is for me – the origin of sense-making of who I am and what the world around me is all about. Contrary to the Why, these questions don’t require a structure or a framework to get to the bottom of the problem. There is no bottom. There is no problem. Only a capricious stream of experiences, waiting to be captured by the words at the irregular moments of one’s life.
Irina, The capture
The writing process:
- Scrivener for typing text
- ChatGPT for synonyms, first impressions, and title ideas
- Grammarly for grammar and spelling
