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Reflecting on Jack Kerouac's death from Dharma Lion , a biography of Allen Ginsberg by Michael Schumacher:
For Kerouac, much of life was emptiness and illusion. "So he drank himself to death, which is only another way of living, of handling the pain and foolishness that it's all a dream, a great baffling emptiness, after all."
From the Buddha's Little Instruction Book:
When wishes are few, the heart is happy. When desire ends, there is peace.
Oh to take these words to heart and keep them there, close, never forgotten especially when it comes to me and the writing life. I've had several quite productive weeks. Coming to the desk, doing the work, sometimes even channeling words through me but now, today, Friday, I feel wearied on the edge of burned out. The wise ones would tell me now is the time to step away, work on something else, something different. Why do I forever fight stopping, switching gears?
This work is not like the 9 to 5. It's not an endurance test. The bright lights don't shine every time I bring my typing fingers to these keys. I guess I do wish that the pace could be sustained, that every day I could crank out another piece, or find my way to a revision. It's not for lack of trying that I haven't found my way to something that perks my interest this morning. Fits and starts on numerous in-the-works projects but nothing that is grabbing me, nothing that compels me to seek my way into its truth.
Maybe it was the fun poem about superheroes read by Garrison Keillor on his Writer's Almanac show this morning. Maybe that's when I lost it, my thinking how I never write anything fun as that.
All a mystery this, creating, musing, tricking the conscious into letting the unsettled, unseamly, craziness elements in. This could just be one of those days when I don't feel deep or pithy or profound or even that much wanting to be expressive. When I want to take a break from the desire. A peace.
