Defining Noise

Is ego a trap...or is the superstructure holding things together? What is the importance of identity? We certainly embrace labels: Straight. Queer. American. Illegal Immigrant. On my website, I describe myself as "Writer" and "Explorer." All these "ers" we attach to ourselves. On social media, you put up pictures of your actual children or your fur-children, I put up sections of my stories (my children)---

Look at me. This is what is important to me. This is what I have done, where I have gone.

Acknowledge and accept me, my identity.

We need this, acknowledgement and acceptance. The question is why, what are our motives? What is driving this need for acknowledgement and acceptance.

I struggle with this myself. I want to sell enough books so that I do not have to work normal jobs anymore---

That seems a loaded reason to try and get you to read my books.

I just want to be able to focus my time and energy on writing more books.

But is that true? Or, do I simply not want to keep working normal jobs...and I am pulling you into the plot, as it were?

Motives.

I like to think of myself on the path to enlightenment (not very far along!), but maybe I am not even to to my front door.

This is a time of insecurity. We are surviving through a continuing pandemic, or a divided country, of AI taking our jobs. We worry what will happen as we age, of the world our children or nephews/nieces will be our age in. We need both an escape from our concerns and a "superstructure" to keep everything together, our beliefs, our identity. That identity could be rooted in our job, it could be in raising children or the religious organization we are part of, the art we create:

This is who I am. This is why I exist. This is what gives my life meaning.

This is the movie we escape to when the day grows barbs, the song we listen to when our life is colored by pain, by confusion.

The past seven months I have been channeling stories I believe in, stories of my life from childhood to my thirties. Channeling may sound a cutsie term, but I am trying to remove ego from this....remove or at least shine a light on my motivations, on one's nature to celebrate themselves instead of---in this case---books. A book is not a house. Building a house requires physically taking things (boards, screws, sheetrock) and combining them. Building a book involves picking up on inspiration, channeling it. I believe creative people are like radios; sometimes the signal is weak, sometimes it is very strong. It's picking up a station, a channel. It takes skill to turn inspiration into a book or a symphony or a painting, but mostly it's just picking something out of the air---

I have to look at it that way. have to scruntinize my own motivations, this is my struggle.

Why do I believe these stories must be shared with you? Do I believe in their merit...or in my own?

If I stopped writing tomorrow---I couldn't, this is only a question---who would I be?

I found myself years ago, I believe I understand my purpose in life---

But am I seeing the purpose as it is, or as I believe it should be?

These are questions posed to myself, but perhaps they would be useful for yourself, as well. Why do we need to put up pictures of a meal we ate, us in the middle of intoxicated friends, of a rock outcropping we visited? Why do we need to share these things? We do we need to be seen? There should be no guilt in needing to be seen, no shame, but the why is a crucial quesiton?

Consciously, there is no map, no clear idea of how to proceed. You can get AI advice, read books on what to do, ask people who have done it--

But, why are you doing it?

Are you adding something positive to the world...or just more noise? There is too much noise, too much static, too many pop up ads. Your demographic is targeted thousands of times a day.

Sometimes you have to put down your phone and look for birds, look up at the diffused sunlight coming through the trees. Look at old structures and imagine the people building it a hundred years ago---what was it like to live as an ordinary person in 1913 (when my apartment building was erected)?

We are not always allowed to breathe, to do nothing, to just sit in a chair and stare at a wall and be an absence of action. We need to be planning for our retirement, need to juggle bills, the boss is texting asking if you can come in an hour early---

More ads, more requests of your time and energy...more noise.

Do this for yourself: Allow yourself some quiet time every day, no obligations, no responsibilities. Let your mind rest, do not ask anything of it, just open yourself, let those beautiful, blank moments exist.

And this, I believe, is how it starts...