August 31, 2020
Look for the Light
Everything I know about uncertainty I have learned from being a writer, and being a blogger. And I have never really had to use this knowledge in a practical sense until the last few months, and there have been days and weeks when I’ve done a very bad job of it, but in general I am keeping an even keel, and here is the stuff that is helping me with that.
1) Nobody knows what is going to happen next. This is a promise as much as it’s also a curse. But we keep going/reading/writing to discover, and it takes faith, stamina, courage. We all possess these things, and can cultivate them too.
2) If magic is real, it lies in the process, where one thing turns into another. And process is never a straight line. There will be setbacks and failures. Some drafts will be garbage. And it’s easy to be mired in the process, to despair at all the road ahead, if it will ever end, if that road is a road at all.
But then, please revisit my first point.
3) Take breaks. Take walks. Step away from your screen sometimes and often.
4) We move forward one word/post/page/day at a time. Breaking a thing down into manageable pieces is essential. The big picture is so overwhelming—a whole book, a whole blog, a global pandemic. But if you just focus on the challenges and tasks immediately before you, you can do it.
We can do this!
As we move into a new season, I look forward to discovering new ways to rise to the occasion, to finding new solutions to the problems that arise, to realizing our own strength and resilience as we do.
Our species has travelled to the moon, guys.
So surely we’re up to the task of autumn.
Even in 2020.
Keep going. Look for the light.
