The right path?

 

January 29, 1988

 

Caught in the dream machine?

If anything, we’re talking some strange experienes here as the brain struggles with the idea of change, a mind which has been caught uyp for years in self-destruction now aches for new meaning and a sense of future.

This became a little clearer over the last few weeks when I made some moves to make things better.

Still there were disasters as well as successes.

The great hope I had in the van came crashing down when after six days of owning it, someone smashed the window trying to break into it.

This made me feel vulnerable, and my world felt insecure.

In a reckless need to get rid of that feeling, I sold the van. But then realized I was only using it to hide under or in, and that the break in told me what I least wanted, but most needed to hear: that I cannot spend my life in hiding, and that sooner or later, the world will fall down on my head – and for the worse leading me to despair, allowing little time for recovery.

I’m not talking wholesale sell-out other people I know succumbed to when their original dreams did not work out.

There has to be some middle ground, a balance between starving artist and sellout, between day dream and harsh reality.

One needs inspiration to thrive, and the other to make sure the starving part of starving artist isn’t more than a metaphor.

At 36, fear of dying has put me on a new track. I have no medical issues, I’m just scared, and realize that I’m still young enough to change, and still capable of salvaging a future out of the ashes of the past.

I keep worrying what I will do in ten years if I’m still on this same treadmill, and this thought has motivated me to cast away some of the old habits.

None of this is easy. Change breeds fear.

There is intense discomfort in giving up tried and true old habits, even when those habits are bad for us.

I keep thinking that I’m not worth much in the greater scheme of things and so I’m anxious for some measure of success.

But I’m so used to living in the darkness that I’m blinded by desire for success.

Seeing my name on the front page of a paltry weekly newspaper in my hometown of Paterson is an amazing accomplishment for me, and one that I can’t quite get used to.

It scares me to think it is the first step towards something significant, something that won’t end up in failure, the way my plans for travel in the van have.

Maybe after three and a half decades of life, I’ve stumbled onto the right path.

Who knows?