When I decided to try writing full-time at the end of 2018, I was sure I knew how my new career was going to proceed. After years of procrastination, I was finally raring to go. I knew that my top priority was production. As long as I was writing, everything else would follow. While that is true up to a point, there have been other obstacles. One of the major roadblocks I failed to allow for was my preconceptions.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last four decades that’s central to my way of thinking, it’s to question everything. In fact, I have an inherent distrust of absolute certainty, both in myself and others. The way I see it, certainty is overly restrictive to the mind. I’ve found that once I’ve become certain about something, I stop examining it critically. It’s like taking thoughts, beliefs or behaviors and enshrining them in a mental trophy case, there to be admired but never taken back down and examined aside from the occasional dusting.
Once I started writing in earnest, I discovered that my mental trophy case contained more than I’d bargained for and I was being restrained by my own mental detritus. To my surprise, much of what I’d learned over the years that many would label as ‘acting and thinking like an adult,’ was completely nonconstructive when I tried to be creative. Especially critical thinking. Critical thinking is far too easily transformed into destructive criticism. The worst consequence of all was that I couldn’t seem to find the joy in writing anymore. I knew I was capable of feeling that joy-- I could remember the feeling, after all-- but I just couldn’t generate it while working anymore.
So I’ve been spending time regressing, trying to get back to the innocent and unaffected self that I know is buried under the accumulated crust of years. I intend for this blog to be an ongoing part of that journey which is why it’s “The Regression of Elden Williams,” and I’m thrilled to have you along for the journey.
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