or “fear into work”
i want to talk about isolation for a bit.
its a feeling i’m becoming more familiar with as this fog continues to form in the space between my ears. i made a conscious effort to keep distracted from writing, more than that, the process of getting lost in repeating imagery, spending hours mulling over a story. many of the major ideas that have come to me took over so much of my thoughts, i had to step away from them altogether.
for all the worry i’ve dedicated to putting work into pages only a select few may read and podcasts only a few may choose to hear, i needed space.
empty space.
it has worked for the most part. there will be more entries here about my distractions. this small corner of internet is one i’ve neglected most of all.
i will remedy this
but i wonder how many more places can i pour my isolation, this second sweat that fills my pores.
one of my distractions was a story.
science fiction.
my first attempt.
i channeled so much of my isolation into the words. i wanted those who read to feel the same disoriented feeling as my nameless drifter.
a human among creatures native to the stars, to toxic air and blinding, burning sunshine. the drifter knows a bit of their language and the creatures know just enough of his to be civil. what drives a character to take on a journey?
knowledge.
what do you wish to know?
what are you seeking?
connection.
i had gotten so deep in my tunnel vision, i forgot how to people.
for all the time in the game of life, the economy of marriage, longing. i’ve spent a long time studying those faces buried in phones in quiet moments. so much that ive become a perfect mimic.
unaware.
the faces in the office stare ahead blank, just like mine. looking at a thousand miles of promises to self. we cross in hallways, a ballet of machines. neither sides smile. we move to the ticking of the clock. i take time from the fury of the dance to pray for my daughter, for invisible hands to guide her the days that i fail to.
my drifter forgets the sound of his own language, until he hears it spoken to him.
he throws everything away to find another just like him. its been so long, he can’t remember the last human face he’d seen. he can barely remember his own face. i’ve been seeing the same words online over and over, about putting your fear into your work. i don’t believe i have a larger fear than doing an entire lifetime of work for nothing at all.
the abyss update for no man’s sky brought me back into that sprawling galaxy. i spent hours again getting lost in new oceans, the random breathing wilderness, the darkness of space. i still feel for that team of guys who created and built more and more game on top of an infinite playground and some feel it is still not enough.
between all the research done on podcasting, what already exists and what the outlier gentlemen could offer that is different, i found the simple, stark military language of jocko willink. more than the hours of talk, but the slow, drawn out reading of excerpts from soldiers past, articulating their own isolation, a savage desperation that speaks with percussive beats to dot the silence like bomb blasts. all these things rolled into my story.
more distractions to come.
i need more of this
.
shadowart 