And Again

“Learn to run roughshod over the obstacles in your head” are the first words I posted at a new site I created long ago in the hopes of finally finding the right venue for my words. The domain I purchased for this purpose was collectingthoughtspress.com, and it became many things to me, but most of all, a daily journal with a one-thousand-word quota on the more than 400 posts that eventually filled it.

I have yet to create a site that feels safe enough for me to be me, a site where my words are truly my own, where the sentences are not constructed with a mythical audience in mind. So, here I am, today, restarting (yet again) with all the determination in the world, but I still cannot promise even myself that I will follow—no, not follow, forge—forge the right path.

I have struggled, in these last quiet months, with a Sense of Purpose, and every time I’ve convinced myself that I’ve got it pinned to the canvas, it takes a deep breath and rises to its feet again, ready for another tangle. Training for my go-rounds with this Sense of Purpose has included sparring matches with old posts, journals, commonplace books, and tentatively begun pages in Evernote and Word.

Unfortunately, my rivalry with old Purpose does not represent all the matches on my schedule. Working out in another ring, ready to knock me out at the sound of the bell, is Impostor Syndrome. It taunts me from across the gym and whispers, when it walks by a little too close for comfort, “Who are you, exactly?” and “What makes you think you have anything worth saying, anything of interest to another human being?”

I’ve never liked seeing my name in the Loss column, which means I’ve often avoided stepping into the ring in the first place. Rather than risking a loss, I’ve chosen to simply spend more time on the punching bag or with the jump rope.

What thoughts I have been collecting? Why should I share any of it?

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin.
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

—T.S. Eliot

    I’ll dare if you do, Mr. Prufrock. Who will go first?