I've been creeping up on my scriptophobia sideways. Moving very carefully so it doesn't see me. First, I started by making a deal with my son. We'd have a writing club and we would both write together at the same time from a topic that HE gets to choose from a bowl. My son made noticeable progress in his ease of writing. Me, not so much. I could write well enough from a given topic but still panicked at the blank page.
Still, much of my fear seems to have disappeared when I wasn't looking. I think it started with my private journals. I don't journal to record my life for posterity, I journal-as-therapy. My journals are filled with my particular stresses & challenges. The were (ARE!) never meant to be read by anyone! (Not even me!) I had used this tool as a tool to get thinner & fitter by journaling about it. I was recording all of my thoughts & struggles with it, including notes & information on the dozens of books I read on the subject and the thoughts they inspired.
The next step would have to be when friend and I decided to help each other with our respective weight & fitness goals. Since we do not live close to each other, we would talk on the phone and we would.... you guessed it... journal. We put them into Google docs and would both write our own and comment on the other. This was really useful. Even though we both had lessons to learn to get as fit and healthy as we'd like, they aren't necessarily the SAME lessons. Sharing our strengths & weaknesses and different perspectives really helped in breaking some bad eating habits. It also helps to have someone call "bullshit!" when you are justifying a forbidden cookie. This meant that I was writing with the knowledge that someone WOULD be reading what I wrote. Because it was a very close friend and trust was absolute, it was OK and that barrier was broken.
One thing leads to another. Having had successes in getting fit and loosing weight, I was very motivated to go further. I started getting more active on a weight loss/health website called SparkPeople (I recommend to everyone!) This lead to comments on message boards... then emails....then frequent blog posts. The next thing I knew I was having to break up my chronicle of my journey into pieces to fit into the SP blog format. Now, I find myself planning out the next several "articles" in my head and have more ideas, than time to write them.
Admittedly, all of this is directed at friendly semi-strangers also trying to loose weight in an a very non-critical, supportive environment. And an environment where good writing is not the criteria of success. But still.... I am CHOOSING to write!
They say if you want to be able to write than you just have to write. The more you write the more you are ABLE to write and the easier it gets. (Ironically just like exercise & weight loss.)
I don't think I ever realized that my desperate efforts to loose weight would cause me to loose my biggest fear!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Despair of the Infinite
The ironic thing about you and I being here right now is that I have writing phobia.
The fear of writing or handwriting is graphophobia, but that is usually refers to the actual ACT of writing. The fear of putting the pen on the paper and creating words. It is not the creation of words that I am afraid of.
There is another fear of writing, Scriptophobia, that is the act of writing in public. I am not afraid to write in public, per se, but if this includes the fear of others reading what I wrote, it partially applies. Frankly, though, if I can get past the fear of writing, I really don't mind if others read it.
What I am afraid of is the blank page. If you asked me to create a manual to train others how to extract analytical sales information from a spreadsheet I would have no problem. If you asked me to journal about a specific topic, I would be fine. If you asked me to write down everything I know about cats, we begin to skirt the edge of fear. My heart accelerates, I take deep breaths. It is the blank page... the infinite possibilities that terrifies me. If you put a blank piece of paper in front of me and tell me to "Write Anything" you have pushed me into the abyss. I freeze from terror. I am overwhelmed by the infinite universe of 'Anything'. Anything is just too big. How do you choose from infinity?
I read a lot of Science Fiction. "Anything" encompasses, not just everything in our universe, but everything in a multiplicity of universes. An infinity so large that it swallows you up. You un-exist.
The very act of choosing "anything" eliminates all of the other "anythings" that you did not choose! You begin to write and entire swaths of possibility are erased simply because when you define by writing, you also define as NOT all of the other possibilities! All other realities & possibilities erased in the very moment you begin. All that limitless infinity, destroyed by the limits of what you choose.
If I am writing this, right now, I am NOT writing all of the other infinite things. I cannot be. All of the other infinite me's can choose all of the infinite other options, but I, Now, This Self, cannot.
A philosopher friend of mine pointed me towards Kierkegaard. He defined this as "the despair of the infinite". I love that phrase. It is exactly what keeps me from writing or sends me into a tailspin when confronted with the empty page.
I have decided that this fear is beneath me. I am greater than this fear. I'm going to conquer this fear. I am going to dive into the deep end and start swimming.
The fear of writing or handwriting is graphophobia, but that is usually refers to the actual ACT of writing. The fear of putting the pen on the paper and creating words. It is not the creation of words that I am afraid of.
There is another fear of writing, Scriptophobia, that is the act of writing in public. I am not afraid to write in public, per se, but if this includes the fear of others reading what I wrote, it partially applies. Frankly, though, if I can get past the fear of writing, I really don't mind if others read it.
What I am afraid of is the blank page. If you asked me to create a manual to train others how to extract analytical sales information from a spreadsheet I would have no problem. If you asked me to journal about a specific topic, I would be fine. If you asked me to write down everything I know about cats, we begin to skirt the edge of fear. My heart accelerates, I take deep breaths. It is the blank page... the infinite possibilities that terrifies me. If you put a blank piece of paper in front of me and tell me to "Write Anything" you have pushed me into the abyss. I freeze from terror. I am overwhelmed by the infinite universe of 'Anything'. Anything is just too big. How do you choose from infinity?
I read a lot of Science Fiction. "Anything" encompasses, not just everything in our universe, but everything in a multiplicity of universes. An infinity so large that it swallows you up. You un-exist.
The very act of choosing "anything" eliminates all of the other "anythings" that you did not choose! You begin to write and entire swaths of possibility are erased simply because when you define by writing, you also define as NOT all of the other possibilities! All other realities & possibilities erased in the very moment you begin. All that limitless infinity, destroyed by the limits of what you choose.
If I am writing this, right now, I am NOT writing all of the other infinite things. I cannot be. All of the other infinite me's can choose all of the infinite other options, but I, Now, This Self, cannot.
A philosopher friend of mine pointed me towards Kierkegaard. He defined this as "the despair of the infinite". I love that phrase. It is exactly what keeps me from writing or sends me into a tailspin when confronted with the empty page.
I have decided that this fear is beneath me. I am greater than this fear. I'm going to conquer this fear. I am going to dive into the deep end and start swimming.
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