It all feels so tentative this return to courage and voice through all the ways I create and express. (Listen/Read: “Back From Hiatus!” and “Humanitou Is Dead, Long Live Humanitou.”)
It feels uncomfortable. It also feels necessary.
It feels like I must push on in all the ways I feel connected – writing, poetry, podcast, visual art & design, photography – and push into an expansive space of comfort that swallows so much of what is currently uncomfortable.
We always want to push against that edge, I think. The point of expanding our comfort zones is not to create a buffer that helps us to avoid future discomfort. It’s to become courageously comfortable within the vast space of discomfort, to not allow limitations to rule and shrink us.
Right now, I am working as a horse with blinders on, focusing on the tasks at hand and trying not to let the things outside that place of focus distract or spook me.
I am trying to steadily produce work I feel good about, feel true to, and not allow external voices, or voices I anticipatorily “hear,” to censor or redirect me out of fear. I do not want to second-guess and shrink.
I published a 3-minute, 30-second podcast episode yesterday, “A Way of Being & Seeing on a Trail Hike.” I told my wife, Becca, and she made a simple, non-judgmental comment, never having heard, heard of or considered such a short podcast episode. Her opinion matters more to me than anyone’s.
Immediately, my fragile ego, from somewhere in the shadows of my mind, started wondering, “Maybe this is bad, is wrong, isn’t okay to do?”
Nah, fuck that. I’m tired of contorting. I’m doing me. People can get with that or get without it. There’s room for all to do what we do and be left to do it.
Blinders on, keeping on. Pushing courageously against fear and the edges of the vast space of discomfort. In time, I’ll pull the blinders aside. Right now, I need to focus.
Photo by Mahdi Dastmard
