welcome

oddly enough, i feel like this gigantically busy city encourages a great sense of solitude, self-reflection, and time for things that you previously felt like you didn't have time for - but at the same time, acts as an eraser for many of the things you used to have time for, as well as any/all of the OCD you maybe used to have.

for instance: i used to loath reading. which sucks because most great writers are great readers. ever since i was little i could not stand detail. i remember begging my mom not to make me read those dang little house books because laura used to tell exactly what the popcorn smelled like. looked like. tasted like. felt like. enough already - i've seen popcorn for crying out loud. so i especially hate too many icky details. which unfortunately is most fiction, so i kept to reading non-fiction but then i felt like everything i read was stuff i had already heard before. so with the exceptions of a few great books (night, Jesus wants to save christians, ragamuffin gospel - ok maybe a few more...), i never really did delve into a literary work.

now i have all this new time for reading and thinking. sitting on the train - you can't do anything on your phone. you could stare at your screen or play games that don't need an internet signal, but i get queasy doing that - so i don't. i could either people watch, which is fun but at the same time not that fun because if you make eye contact with a crazy your train ride is shot.

reading it is. finished rob bell's book last week and now i've been partaking in 'my name is asher lev', by the [many years long] recommendation by my brother, grandma, and a good friend. i must say the details are almost too much for me to handle. i kind of stretch my neck out a lot when i'm reading it because it is so annoying. but i feel like there's got to be something worthwhile at the end of this excruciatingly painful as it relates to details-laced tunnel.

i may have found it today! somewhere towards the middle, asher is talking about his amazing gift for writing (he does this throughout the whole book so far), and how the masphia at his school had asked him to draw (basically as a test to see what this kid was all about). the masphia gave asher a sketch pad and a pencil, told him he was leaving, and that for asher to turn the light out and leave the sketchbook on the desk when he was finished. asher stayed for a while, drawing and drawing and then when he was through, went home and reflected upon his drawings. he said, 'i hated what i had drawn in that sketchbook... they were lies, stagnant creations done to someone else's demand, and i despised them.'

i immediately thought of all of the times i've been forced to write - school papers were the worst. i could do them, i just hated forcing something that i usually love to do. it made me hate the art form that i loved so dearly.

i'll share a confession. i don't know why it is so important to me for something i write to get published. it kind of pisses me off. makes me feel like my heart for writing (to challenge people + myself, to encourage, to revitalize broken hearts, etc..) is getting lost in my humanly desire for recognition. when really i get all the recognition i need any time someone says, "awesome." to something i wrote. or for instance, i opened my mail box the other day and there was a letter from someone totally unexpected - who i've actually been thinking has some sort of problem with me - and the entire letter was encouraging me to never throw away the gift of writing. it was a truly beautiful letter.

recently i was asked to write some articles for a magazine that is in the works. i immediately jumped on board - and now that i've had some time to step back and look at the reasons i jumped on board so quickly, i feel totally convicted for the fact that it was self-motivated. this magazine is actually probably not something that i want my name put with, but for some reason i was willing to sacrifice what i knew deep down inside for a chance at that magical word 'published'.

my pastor said everything we do is motivated by two questions. everything. do you love me? am i pleasing to you?

i don't want everything i do to be motivated by that. and i don't want something i see as art to be diminished to stagnate creations don't to someone else's demand (and that someone else could even be my very own greed). so welcome to my newest struggle.