Motion

A good friend today asked me, aren't you in school? Aren't you going to USC? My grandmother asked me, aren't you in grad school? Sad face. I held it together, let them know that I had been rejected (following the one time that I sent in a half-witted application, which was probably late), and changed the subject. Oh, I'm still writing, I said. Oh, I'm working, I said. Aw, man, I felt.

Commitment. Investment. Hard work. Late hours. Scatterbrained. Selfish pursuit. I can't get these phrases out of my head as I think of going to grad school. I have some thinking to do. I need to get out all of my ideas about Moby-Dick. This is hard work. It's not fun, really. It's thinking. It's so fun and free and easy not to think, not to write, not to read much, even. It's intoxicatingly easy. But perhaps it's time to take myself seriously. Not seriously as in, what I want is serious, or my ideas are so grand, but in the sense that I seem to have an ability, why aren't I developing it? It's hard work, it's not drivel, it's not easy. I need to believe it's worthwhile. I need to stop looking for justification for against my doing this literary work. I need to keep a running fear of greatness, and at the same time determine to keep stretching toward my dreams. It's like trying to steel a vibrating dervish, trying to stay in perpetual motion while keeping the most extreme of focus, it's ice dancing, it's hysteria in a quiet, viscous calm. It's hard work.

Small goals, organization, things to which I am not well suited, but hopefully,to which I will someday rest on and rely.