I Tried to Lasso My Intuition

And it ran away

I feel like a wet cloth that’s been wrenched and left in the sun to dry. 

I have become an analytic, seeking the image over the essence.

My experience has been condensed to the necessities. 

I do not seem to know much, though I did before. 

When called upon, I will respond as I otherwise would, though more blankly; in outreach, I lack entirely. 

I have been disconnected. 

And though I have tried, all reconnective efforts thus far have been magnetically repulsed.  

I am not empty, I am disordered 

I thought I was empty, but then I wondered, what must be refilled? Have I not consumed for years? 

Perhaps I’m not empty . . .

I’m so young, so avid. Aren’t we whole at birth? Have I not done immense work for years to fulfill myself?

The only way I can get my fingers to keep moving is to keep moving them. Any time I try to direct them, they pause and eventually stop altogether. Not out of tire, but paralysis.

I must let them be. I must let them flow.

Perhaps that is it. Perhaps it’s not that I’m too empty, but that I’m too full. I have, indeed, been listening to many fragmented opinions lately.

These opinions have, of course, come from the best of places with the best of intentions. But I have hoarded without ordering.

So many trees have collapsed upon my path that I’ve lost sight of the path altogether.

Let be what is

I needn’t look elsewhere for inspiration. It lies within. I am a writer; I must write. 

I need only to excavate. I need only to start moving dirt, to start getting grainy words out of the way so I can achieve deeper depths and more valuable ores.

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I’ve lost touch with my voice.

I must recultivate it. I must nurture it, letting it know it’s okay to be itself. 

Life is not good when I hold on. I must let go. I must make mistakes, as I once did, to become who I was and may still be.

I must relinquish expectations and desires. I must simply be and experience.

Here it is—it is returning. I’m moving the layers of shit that lie in its way. The ideas are within, I simply must let them flow. 

As we must be, so must be our words. 

With no compass, direction is built, not found

Mustn’t there be some sort of direction, though? If I just write, I will surely go in circles. Someone must take the helm.

But how does he know which direction to go? How does he know which way to point the ship?

I don’t think it matters—if there is no compass—because any direction is better than none. 

If he wants to move north, but he moves south, he will soon realize his mistake, because it will get warmer when what he seeks is the cold. The days will be longer when what he seeks are shorter.

Do not get angry with the dark

I must do as I do if I cannot see.

What other choice do I have?

Why am I mad I cannot see if there is no light? I must accept the nighttime, and move forward slowly and steadily, utilizing the senses I still possess.

I have come to rely too much on one, forgoing what makes me whole for what is most captivating.

Be what you are

The mediums through which we operate dictate the elements that shine through. 

The secret lies not in shaping who we are for the mediums but in finding the mediums that most foster our authentic selves.

I have been trying too hard, for too long, to be what I should be rather than what I am. No more.

Opinions are noise, which may guide my actions. But I know what I’m after, and would be a fool to chase every noise I hear.

Do not start with the end in mind

I have been putting a pressure on myself to produce “high-quality” content, and have undermined my writing ability.

I stopped producing altogether. Not out of want, or I guess, a want to not, but out of sheer inability. 

They say to start with the end in mind, but won’t you overlook the steps? How can you know where you want to go if you have not gone?

We simply cannot know where we must end. We can only know where we must step.

The only way we could know the end before we start is if the path is laid out for us. And who wants to walk a premade path?

Isn’t it far more invigorating to forge our own? Why would anyone want to know where they’re going before they start? Isn’t it figuring it out along the way that makes the journey fun? 

The only time I would ever care to walk a path already forged would be if I were to perform. And I myself don’t care much for performance.

Live as you are

It’s funny the way I write because it is not the way I speak. I’m imitating right now. I notice I do this sometimes . . . I’ll read something and then write in a similar voice.

The text I have most recently consumed is Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I find this style of language so much more fun, so much more free. The words we use today are efficient. Indeed, everything we do today has been made efficient.

Is it no coincidence, then, that we’ve forgotten how to live? 

Are we supposed to be living efficiently? Or would it be more accurate to say we are supposed to live beautifully? 

Just take a look at nature. Is it efficient? Or is it beautiful? 

Surely, it does not intend to be beautiful . . . And it is indeed quite efficient. 

But is efficiency its goal? Does it start with efficiency in mind?

I don’t think so. I think it does not start with anything in mind . . . I don’t even know if it minds.

The only thing nature does is be. And from that being, it is both beautiful and efficient.

How can I be? How can I live and let live? How can I unblock the channels that I’ve so clogged this past week?

It is a paradoxical question. There is no need for a “how-to” guide on being. We must simply be. That is it. 

The intuition is a powerful thing, and it is as evasive. Like a watery shadow, it cannot be lassoed.

And it does not like it when anyone attempts to pin it down. I tried to last week, and it ran as far away as it has in a very long time.

We cannot separate ourselves from who we are. 

We are not our ego; we are our conscious experience.

Any effort to fragment and examine is futile.