I watched Lady in the Water last night. Enjoyed it of course, as I love fairy tales and bedtime stories and can suspend my disbelief indefinitely if someone tells a good tale. One of the plots is that the Lady has come to inspire a writer in our world to write a great work that will change the world.
So she meets him and tells him his future: that the book he is writing will inspire a child who has just been born. That child will grow up with this writer's book on his shelves, take the writer's words to heart, become a great leader who quotes the writer in his speeches and eventually will lead the world to great changes that will usher in a new era of peace and change, all because this book has changed him.
Pretty wonderful thing for any writer to learn. But the writer comes back to the Lady and says, "You say the child quotes me. But you never say the child meets me." And goes on with his suspicions. The book he is writing is controversial. It will make people angry. The only way the writer can see it catching on so quickly and his words given such meaning, is if they are the words of a martyr. And he asks her if someone will murder him because of this book he has written. The Lady says yes, the writer will die for those words.
It is the typical double-edged sword, yet it struck me this time. When she first spoke with the writer, I was envious. To know for certain that your book will be published, that it will be a success - that hits at my greatest fear. I think all my books would be finished if there were not the rejection process awaiting me after finishing, both from publishers and from critics both near to me and far away. To have certainty, total faith in your work and your abilities, seems like such a gift and I was envious.
Then the other shoe falls. Would I die for words? Am I brave enough to change the world, but only live half my life? I don't believe in heaven; I don't believe that there is anything at all after we die. This life is all we ever get and do I care enough about the fate of the people in this world that I am willing to give up fifty years of it? Most martyrs are from the Muslim, Christian or other faith and they are told they will be thanked for their death by some afterlife reward system. The writer in the movie did not hesitate (for the Lady would not have visited a waffler such as myself), but I am no longer so innocent and wonder at my own beliefs and intentions. I am willing to sacrifice a lot to make the world a better place - but my life? How much is any life worth, how much is the life of a soldier fighting in Iraq worth? Everything, and nothing, depending on who is doing the judging.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Our greatest fear
Natalie Goldberg writes: "Naturally our great fear is usually the one most important to overcome to reach our life's dreams" in her essay Engendering Compassion. She digs to the heart of fear, realizing that when we get close to our greatest fear, when we touch that nebulous boundry, we bring our whole life into question. When we become unsure of ourselves we make our lives even more painful by questioning why we are here, why we have chosen the path we are on, why we are the people we are today. We decide that everything, in the face of our fear, is a terrible mistake. It is a way of stepping back into comfort of never having to move through the darkness to some sort of understanding. The way is too frightening to face, too dark to blunder through. Yet on the other side is our life's dream.
Overcoming our fears, facing that dark wall, is the only way to truly live the life we want. Yet the overcoming means a questioning our entire life, and feeling pain and uncertainly - it is a bitter choosing. Much more comfortable to fit ourselves back into the mold we’ve been set to. Much easier to believe what others believe of us, rather than reaching out to pluck the chord and see if it rings true. If we challenge other's assumptions of us, indeed our own assumptions of ourselves, we risk censure, we risk condemnation we risk alienating the things that make us comfortable, give us security. But at what price is comfort? At what price is security? Is it worth your life's dream? Is it worth reaching the end of your life and wondering why you didn't take the chance?
"When we write and begin with an empty page and a heart unsure, a famine of thoughts, a fear of no feeling - just begin from there, from that electricity," Goldberg confidently states. Just? A hard beginning. The angst of a heart unsure is terrible to work through. What do I fear most? A question for the heart. It is most likely the fear the stops me from writing. What is on the other side of that fear? It feels like more uncertainty; yet in that uncertainty is my life's dream. So I must do as Natalie says and write on, through the fear to gain a dream.
Overcoming our fears, facing that dark wall, is the only way to truly live the life we want. Yet the overcoming means a questioning our entire life, and feeling pain and uncertainly - it is a bitter choosing. Much more comfortable to fit ourselves back into the mold we’ve been set to. Much easier to believe what others believe of us, rather than reaching out to pluck the chord and see if it rings true. If we challenge other's assumptions of us, indeed our own assumptions of ourselves, we risk censure, we risk condemnation we risk alienating the things that make us comfortable, give us security. But at what price is comfort? At what price is security? Is it worth your life's dream? Is it worth reaching the end of your life and wondering why you didn't take the chance?
"When we write and begin with an empty page and a heart unsure, a famine of thoughts, a fear of no feeling - just begin from there, from that electricity," Goldberg confidently states. Just? A hard beginning. The angst of a heart unsure is terrible to work through. What do I fear most? A question for the heart. It is most likely the fear the stops me from writing. What is on the other side of that fear? It feels like more uncertainty; yet in that uncertainty is my life's dream. So I must do as Natalie says and write on, through the fear to gain a dream.
Blogging the Jouney
In the past all I've used this for is posting family writings. But this year is different, I think. I'd like to start posting my jouney to a dream. I realized that there is a belief in me that dreams are only for kids, for young people and we mature past the need for dreams and discard them for more "rational" jobs and pastimes. I am now 35, soon to turn 36. I am old, in my mind, for dreams. Everything in me says I need to be rational, give up this silly childishness because people no longer believe in me. They want me to join them in thier grownup, planned world. But I can't deny my heart, and if I have gotten a bit of a later start than some, I do not mean to give up now. And that is what this blog is about. Exploring the fear that stops my dreams. Passing through it to my heart's desire.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)