8 Clicks from Nowhere ䷀

Dispatches ⌂

Category: [16] Exist & Deny

Midlife and the urgent need to make & participate in something that matters.

Chapter List

  • Short Stories

    As October arrives and I’m just a few short weeks away from turning fifty—five-oh—and of all things to be worried about, I’ve been thinking about my approach to writing fiction.

    I’ve got a half dozen half-written novels stored away on the very computer that I’m writing these words, dangling tales parked on my hard drive and glued in place with countless good intentions to finish each and every one of them.

    Now look, the problem with making some big public proclamation is that there is just as good a chance that I’ll trip and land on my face as cross that distant finish line with my hands triumphantly up in the air. I write for another project all about running, and the thing about running is that it is all about setting out one step at a time and taking each activity, each race, each recovery as it’s own thing—and occasionally you literally do trip and land on your face (or smash into the trunk of a large tree with your shoulder, but that’s another story)—but then you get up and keep running.

    I have a goal for my fifties and it’s something of a marathon of short fiction writing.

    See, all the while that I’ve been accumulating half-written novels, I’ve also been penning an occasional short story. They’ve always been side projects.

    Short stories are not just an important medium in their own right but (going back to that running metaphor) training reps for writing fitness. They train us to think about plots that resolve in a meaningful way. They train us to build daily stamina for nurturing characters. They train us to write good, cohesive fiction.

    So about that goal… Starting in October, my last full month of my forties, I’m going to write and post a single short story. And then I’m gonna write and post another one in November. And another in December… and, well, I’m just going to keep writing a new story every month.

    We’ll try that for a year. 

    And maybe it’ll build a new habit for my fifties. 

    Or maybe I’ll trip and land right on my face. But I gotta try.

  • Permission Trap

    I fell deep into the permission trap while on vacation recently. 

    We went on a summer trip. It was exciting. It was picturesque. It was the city of lights and every turn seemed like a new reason to point my camera and click the shutter. I took a lot of photos.

    So of course… I posted a few of the best pics on Instagram so that my collection of friends and fam who follow on my private account could enjoy those same photos.  And, genuinely, the first day that I posted the response was overwhelmingly positive. 

    But… well. I posted more pics on the second day, and a couple more on the third… 

    The following days were less positive. People had tuned out.

    Fair enough, I suppose. Vacation photos while everyone is back home getting ready another work day. The patience for that is limited. I get it.

    But we are funny to each other this way, aren’t we?

    I’m not saying this to dive into a pit of self-pity about my social engagement. There are an array subtle social cues that are conveyed by modern interactions on social media platforms, and being shrugged off by one’s own friends and family, and I would suggest that a big one is the subconscious permission structure around sharing.

    People are online. People are on these apps. People are scrolling, looking at advertisements and AI slop and influencer drivel, so in my own mind I am considering that I can offer something better by sharing: Me, a real person that the people on my private account all personally know, travelling the world and sharing his photos.

    But then the permission trap emerges from the inaction of the masses: a fraction of the likes and indifferent shrugs and my anxious, approval-seeking artist’s mind reads that right to the thought of least resistance: people don’t want to see it. I’m oversharing. I’m boasting. I’m swamping the feeds of friends with a reality that breaks their comfortable slop-ridden, algorithmic vibe and I don’t have their permission to break into that for more than a single post.

    I’m overthinking it, of course. Because that’s the trap.

  • Exist Deny

    When I was in middle school I would have told you with absolute conviction that I was going to be a famous published author by the time I was twenty-five.

    In a few short months I’ll be twice that age and neither published nor famous.

    Nuances of that pipe dream aside, having found myself firmly in the middle of middle age and midlife, I can’t help but also look both forward and back as I recognize this deep and urgent need to make something that matters.

    I’m sure we all stumble upon this kind of existential crisis sooner or later, and while some might sooth that thirst with a fancy car or a quirky hobby or a dangerous liaison, there are more than a few of us who look at middle life as a moment to evaluate our creative output and try to get our minds around how to adjust its trajectory for a rapidly decreasing timeframe.

    I don’t have the first real clue towards a solid answer, if I’m being honest, but I do have a lot of questions and even more thoughts on the matter. Maybe you have some of the same questions.

    Under the category of Exist & Deny  I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.

  • Fibre Arts

    I have a lot of friends who consider themselves fibre artists, knitting and sewing and quilting and weaving, but if you clicked on this post thinking I had something to add to that conversation I apologize in advance: the fibre I have been thinking about more recently is the dietary kind.

    I think you would be hard-pressed to find a nutrition expert that disagrees with the idea that more fibre in our diets is a positive thing. We all know this, of course, but it’s the actual eating more fibre which has always been the tricky parts. Most fibre-rich foods are definitely not in the category of exciting, tasty, comfort foods.

    But then you get a bit older and you spend some time actually heeding that nutrition advice and, yeah, eating more fibre.  The correlation is not immediate, though. It takes a few days, or maybe a few weeks, and suddenly you just feel better.

    Fibre is a also a great analogy for other parts of life. As we age and develop a kind of mid-life urgency to add purpose and meaning to our fleeting days it’s so easy to look past the important bits of advice and go straight for the tastiest morsels. 

    See, fibre is more than a healthy food, it’s a way of thinking about a part of your life that thinks beyond the moment of gratification. It’s the lesser-palatable bits of effort and practice and pursuit for which we often don’t see immediate payoff, but in a few weeks or years makes the most difference.

    Figuring out what’s fibre and what’s something else, though, that’s up to you.

  • Deeper Seeking

    What is the meaning of it all?

    Oh sure, some people would be happy to tell you that they have all the answers. Some people will even sell you those answers—for the right price, of course.

    I’m not buying, but it doesn’t mean I am in a position to sell, either.

    As I sweep through my life and close in on my fiftieth birthday later this year, I knew better than to expect I would have figured everything out by this point—but I didn’t figure I would still be this far away from any satisfying answers.

    And the world really does seem in shambles right now, doesn’t it?

    How to fix that? Well. For a few months now I’ve been writing this week-daily writing project it has done interesting things to the way I have been thinking about inspiration and personal creativity and motivation to make interesting stuff. It’s valuable to me—in other words. But lately it’s been pretty niche without much room for deeper thoughts on the meaning of life and the other sorts of things I’ve been yearning to write about more, too. Something inside of me said, hmmm, what if it also helped work through something a little more—um—metaphysical?

    Thus, here we are. My haunt. This site. And I’m expanding a bit.

    I started writing on my list of ideas, and realized I had a lot of ground to cover in any such exploration. To that end, I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I think I can probably cobble together a compass to help me figure out which way to start walking. 

    My plan is to not only keep writing on creativity and inspiration, but to write more posts on mindfulness, balance, clarity and hope, much of it in the context of work, culture, aging, and trying to find a fit for oneself in society, too. It all seems but a distant dot on an unfamiliar map, but I’m determined to get a little closer with each entry here.