Hello Yily 🤍

I have at long last come back to our Infinite Library space. It has been two years since I last visited this corner of the world. 

Please allow me to explain my long absence….

In my last Tiny Talk, I shared my feelings about “writer’s block.” I shared my very stubborn and none-too-popular belief that there is actually no such thing as writer’s block. 

I say that, instead of being a problem or a block or a thing to blast through, instead of being an obstacle to overcome, I think it is simply time to take a break and do something different. It is my feeling that putting too much pressure on creativity (whether it’s writing or woodworking or snow sculpting or what have you) I think that putting too much pressure on this gift makes about as much sense as trying to try to steer a cat.

For me, creativity is very much a flow. If the creative well feels empty, I it is time to move on to something new, or to pick up an old hobby in the middle (learning to play the bass guitar, painting, playing with clay, writing, sewing, gardening, drawing, dancing). Beyond just helping with writer’s block, happily playing in different creative pools is a next level life skill. (With the added bonus of being vibrant and just plain fun.)

So I wrote this talk saying that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. 

Then a funny thing happened…. 

Immediately after writing publishing that talk, I got a full case of writer’s block. I stopped being able to write tiny talks all together for 2 years. For two years I could not write a single tiny talk. I continued to dream up ideas for probably fifty future talks, but each and every one took a step back and said, “nope, nope, nope. Not me. Not now. No thank you” each and every one said, “I am not the tiny talk you are looking for.”  

And suddenly found myself having to put into practice my own beliefs. For two years. Did I mention that it was two whole years where I couldn’t write a single tiny talk? 

There were these waves of pressure and doubt, waves of feeling like I was doing it wrong, not good enough, a quitter, a failure. “See, there’s another project that you started and then just walked away from.”

I had to talk to myself. A lot. And I did, I talked to myself (sometimes even out loud:)) 

Every time one of those waves of doubt came crashing in, every time those cringes of being a failure crashed over me, I would freeze in fear then sort of cross my fingers, close my eyes, hold my breath…. All in my imagination; sort of like hiding from a nightmare and hoping it goes away. “This is not real. This is not real. This is not real. I really f*****g hope I am not the failure I think I am.”

But most of the time, most of the time I wasn’t worried about it because I wasn’t even thinking about this not writer’s block. I wasn’t even thinking about it because I was doing other things, many other things. There was a painting phase (that didn’t last too long, not I made three paintings that I like and started a few more).

Then I decided to learn to play bass guitar (and a little keyboard). I also got talked into being the chairperson of a vibrant and life saving recovery community. (It is a ridiculous amount of work sometime. And it is ahhhmazing and so good for me.) Then in the midst of all that I sprained my wrist for nine months and went into a deep and murky depression around that. (Nine months.)

And now I finally get to circle back this home, this Infinite Library.

And I’ll tell you what, it feels so good to be back.

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Image courtesy of Boris Smokrovic.