Thought Sketch :/\: Inside the Monkey Mind of an Aspiring Writer

“What should I write about this week? It needs to be good. Ooh, I know, I’ll write about bird language. I’ve been wanting to learn it anyway as a way to connect with the natural world. But I don’t know enough about it yet. What else is there related to biomimicry and nature that could be interesting? Who am I even writing this for? Who’s my audience? Why do I care so much? I’m going for consistency, not quality. Remember that. The key to growth is to just keep showing up and producing. That’s how all the great inventors became great inventors — they had countless failed experiments before any of them brought about a real discovery. My goal is to express, share, and connect. To practice vulnerability. This is how cultures are created — through shared stories. So just connect! How do I connect? Share vulnerably. But that seems too personal; I don’t know if I’m willing to expose myself that way. It’s the only way.”

This loop could feel endless, like 10 different voices chattering all at once, all going somewhere and nowhere. The mind is a powerful thing, and I’m coming to see it as a master architect. To have the capacity to create worlds that makes one feel as if they’re stuck in a 3D (or 4D?) version of an M.C. Escher sketch with no apparent way out, an impossible labyrinth — that’s a sophisticated system. There’s so much to learn from it. It seems the only way out is to collaborate, to play with it. Rather than fight the chatter, the resistance, the blocks — I’m choosing to embrace them. Expose them for what they are, and in that way they can be seen and acknowledged and move along.

An infinity symbol comes to mind, as a form of a closed loop. I see in it the rhythm of life — the rise and fall, the in and out, the inhale and exhale, the sanity and the psychosis, the light and dark. One foils into the other, and the contrast creates life and beauty.

Onto my next challenge!