Drafts
Unfinished
I have over 200 drafts written,
many sparked by a moment of inspiration
nearly all lost their thread.
What is it that encourages writing worth publishing?
I ask myself this question every week as my deadline looms, 10pm on Friday. Got to get my article completed, scheduled. No way I’m breaking a 2+ year writing streak. Should have planned ahead, I’ve done it before, what procrastination hell prevents me from typing this week?
I aspire to write a good story; to write well enough I’d read my own work again. I do read my own article each week. What am I missing? Characters? Plot? Purpose? Mystery?
The whole point was to increase purpose, clarity, expose thoughts to consistently bring out the hope needed to repair one’s hard knocks each week. Expectations can make or break.
“The true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life”
-Naval Ravikant
I can either change my actions or change my wants. I don’t feel like I have that extraordinary of wants. Maybe my dreams are a bit lofty, they’re more like ideals than goals. A family-oriented mind, community, and nation.
I had a conversation with a stranger the other day which each time I review reveals additional faults in my life’s architecture that I had thought I patched.
He described the three pillars:
Health: without it, nothing else works
Wealth: without it, we are unable to grow independent
Relationships: without it: the rest are not worth pursuing
These are the three legs of the stool, if one leg is short or broken, the other two destabilize your seat.
Seems obvious that my writing is dependent on many other aspects of my life and that its direction has been dissipating into the fog of chaos.
Much like life, writing is most improved by pruning, weeding. Reduction, rather than unfettered growth. My drafts reflect an ever-increasing pile of potential, same with my pile of project equipment. Both need to be pruned so that potential can be realized through focused effort.
The tendency to record, save, archive, collect, and store information is itself a distraction from the present. An act of abdication, from my present self to my future self. Pretending that I’ll read those papers or write those drafts betrays the present.
I’ve periodically thought: if I can’t find it again or remember the information, maybe it simply isn’t worth saving. That my own forgetting is a form of pruning, a useful process for filtering only the most valuable information over time.
What needs forgetting or forgiving in your life?