How to leave everything eighty-eight percent done

I hate editing.
When I write something new, I try to go over it right after I've finished it, then I let it ferment in my drafts for a while, revisiting it every once in a while until it's all edited and seems good enough to publish.
The problem is, if I wait too long I become bored with the piece and it never seems good enough to publish.
Therefore, I end up never finishing anything and feeling like a failure. 

Paste Paper

So yesterday I learned how to make paste papers with a few of my siblings at a friend's house. It was a lot of fun, there's next to no limit to what you can do with this medium creatively, even if some people refer to it as "glorified fingerpainting", haha :)

My first paper

I created this pattern with a wad of plastic wrap

Handprints 

The last paper I designed.

I have no idea what happened to the color when I photographed this thing. The feathery splotches are white, not blue.

Tread Lightly, Enter At Your Own Discretion (This thing is a mess)

What of the world in my head right now?
What of the ability and struggle to arrange and rearrange words to imitate and represent things no word was ever born from? What of the tangled mess that is any one thought, tied up in everything else dwelling in mind, body and heart?

--However, A paragraph composed entirely of questions is not fun to read, no matter whether or not if I intend to answer them--

But the thought, the idea, floaty as it may be, --flighty as my writing is-- but the knotted thread and pathway of every concept, including god. The inability to vilify or angelicize anything altogether or entirely. This, in my mind, at least, makes it difficult to communicate effectively or confidently. Or even, I suppose, to make decisions.
Catching yourself in your ego-trapping, then writing that sentence and kind of mentally tripping. A shrug of shoulders and we move on, not to take anyone entirely at any one thing said.
What is life going to be like? Every year learning you knew nothing? Continually afraid, but watching for the day fear no longer comes knocking, but perhaps afraid even of that moment? (I'm really not as paralyzed by fear as I sound sometimes, I write more of my fear than of my courage.)

Look at us, finding ourselves every where. Resolving and falling and resolving again, self-conscious. Wondering if there is a place for our voice, flawed and inarticulate, though still beautiful, amongst all of those other voices, similar or not.


I sit here and pick myself apart, lay it all out in the air around me, suspended in reds and purples and whites. Constructing a world around myself, hopefully, but still not finding it altogether to my liking, and at the same time, feeling overwhelmed by what I perceive as the "outside world". Being terribly afraid of a god separate from me who would direct me where I don't want to go, though I say god is everywhere, in everyone, including at the heart of me.
I cannot see everything, but I would say that god sees everything. Even as this lends me trust and some form of faith, it opens all sorts of new intimidating doors, and trust ebbs away.
Not knowing the future, not knowing what will happen, but trying so hard to figure out how. Looking for when, straining to open my eyes, to see things clearly, and then blinding myself from (repetitious use of the word, but whatever) fear of what may be. Trying to know but not knowing and cringing at the prospect and offering of knowledge.
I once heard tell of a poem comparing communication, friendship, and love to two people flashing each other back and forth, lifting and peeling away clothing experimentally, weighing the other person's reactions. Rather ingenious, I'd say.
But that begs the question; why not just be soul and heart and personality-naked from the get go? Honestly though, even if we got past that particular affection, it still takes time to peel the skin away, for hearts to become familiar.

***

I've never attempted to articulate all of this before. None of it is concrete, all of it is a towering, flickering column or cylinder of fire. I have a thousand hands, and on each of them sits a small person, their own hands (more than just two) raised to eternity, mouths open and speaking in tongues on serene or animated faces. I don't know if anything will ever be black and white to me, even as I search so hard for the "right" path.

To break and comment for a moment: This page is not just white, it is flaming in so many colors, tangled with lush living leaves and bone and sinew. And back to the dance;

But bah, It is all in my own head, and who am I to influence the eyes and hearts of others? This is nothing but a page, with not even the barest trace of my fingerprints upon it.
What could it possibly retain of me? I suppose, however, that is the purpose of myth and story and metaphor; to put one's own personal stamp upon words strung together in infinite and impersonal combinations. What is the point of striving for that, though? Why should it matter?
I feel like I myself am fluid and blank, but I'm sure that too is untrue. Even as I so "modestly" back down from uniqueness, I am everywhere; I remember that in some way -on one of those hands- I am only here, therefore nowhere therefore both nothing and no less than everything. Monotone.
Have I lost you yet?
I am trying to leave a trail, but I don't know if it followable, for I created it and in creating it, I follow invisible trails of mind where I neglected to drop breadcrumb, ergo that does not mean it is in any way sensible to another person.

If I can be so many flavors, hypothetically so many people, does that mean I am nobody? Or a new kind of self? But that too is presumptuous. Guessing and theorizing and second-guessing and cross-referencing and doing it all far too shoddily in almost the only way I know how. But life is like cake, there is more than one way to bake cake, and more than one way to live life. There is an infinity of components and combinations to both. That, I suppose, is why I figure I can go about creating my life on my own, and it will, hopefully, be a better fit than the institutionalized, industrialized version of life. The one problem with this is I can see --if not all, a great many different possibilities, and it is difficult to drop my star-struck eyes back to the path ahead and choose, or just walk on.



Yes, this thing is a mess, but somehow I like it all the same.
What of the world in my head? What of it? This is the closest I've ever come (In one piece of writing, at one time of being) to mapping it all out.

Musings

Life as battle or quest? Or something else entirely?
Life as battle, war; everything is won or lost, everything is a struggle and a fight, an upward climb and tearing of the heart and soul and flesh. You can only ever conquer or fail, pulling yourself up a cliff's edge by your fingernails and teeth, crashing down onto the rocks below when you falter and lose your grip. Life as some great thing you must win, only one pathway, only one right. Inflexible, binding and restrictive.

But life as quest, a wending pathway of discovery, exploration, learning and seeking, is a beautiful living. Then life is stream and pathway and wind about your ears. Then you can shine and love and really see, really understand, and understand that, honey, you're really never going to get it all, and that's perfectly okay. Life as quest; life as play and happiness, life as learning to be with sadness, tears as rain on the ground, nurturing growth and further beauty. Being in emotion, all emotion, acknowledging and allowing it. Life as flowering, a great opening up and unfurling and shedding color and light. Giving, not taking. Creating; not only destroying. Life as pulse, wave, flow; up and down and back and forth.




Rumi;
"Great lions find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that as a last resort.

So those bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won't mind if I pry them open."

And Hafiz;
"How did the rose ever open its heart and
give to the world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against
its being, otherwise we all remain too
frightened."


If I let it be, and don't try really hard to fit it all together, it will fall into place in its own structure. 

Analogies

Before me sits a blank page, an invitation to write, black ink to form letters to express invisible, silent thoughts.
Slowly, this blank page is filling up, a cup half full against gravity. Or rather I should say that the words and the space they begin to occupy is more like a waterfall, letters tumbling down a white page like water down a rock face.
Like a curtain drawn down, the ending punctuation to a performance, but in this case, the curtain is drawn down as the performance; when it has hit the bottom of the page, the show will be over. The curtain covers an empty stage, the curtain is actors, set, lighting, narrator all wrapped up into one rather than merely being an end.
This paper is now more than half full, more than three-quarters full, and filling up fast. The waterfall will soon hit the basin, the cup will be nigh unto overflowing, and the curtain will soon touch the bottom.
No longer blank, this paper is now a story.

Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

I've hit the most annoying instructive and almost pious streak with my poetry lately... I'm having a hard time with flow and imagery. No matter what I write, it turns into this condescending lesson I'm preaching to myself, I won't let myself be in my own emotions.
I'm feeling very irked about the whole thing.

I understand why; I'm trying to turn stuff around and learn from whatever it is I'm experiencing, but I'm just not letting myself feel, in so many ways.
I've done this before, there was this one year when I was somewhere in between eleven and thirteen, I felt like I couldn't feel anything, as a result of trying to get a grip on my temper, but I was going about it in the wrong way. I wouldn't let myself really feel anything. I got over it after a lot of discussion with my parents, but things tend to loop over and over again in my life.

I need to stop trying to force things upwards, I need to just be where I am, who cares about the future? It'll take care of itself in time, but I don't have to keep reminding myself.
I can be where I am without feeling like I have to change, but with a willingness to change when the time comes.

I've been feeling almost sickened by my own upbeatness.
My optimism isn't really true, it isn't earnest, it's flimsy and lackadaisical, and it isn't really thought out. It's a way of avoiding my problems and emotions... A premature ending to a story that I'm just barely beginning to explore and understand. I've been going through the motions of problem solving, without actually, truly solving anything.

Funny, the things you figure out when writing.

Embroidered repurposed cuff

Easy Eloquence and Clarifying Intricacy

So, hey, how are ya?

I must confess that these past few days haven't been the best for me, not depressing, just a little melancholy and listless. I want to do something really big, really cool. And by big and cool, I probably don't mean anything you might be thinking of; by big and cool I guess I mean quirky and creative. I want to put smiles on a bunch of people's faces, even if I'm not there to see it. I want to shine a light on the unseen corners of my world so other people can cock their heads to one side while their eyes light up with the sunshine of discovery; I want to bring about a smile in their hearts as well as on their faces. I want them to look at the world, and go "Oh!" as something shifts in their minds.
I  guess I rather want to do something like what Katie Sokoler from "Color Me Katie" does, but I don't seem to have the energy or the space or the resources to do it with; whether or not if I really do, I think I don't.
Perhaps I need to tell myself a different story, one where my life is exciting and easy and I have lots of friends, because, for all I know, all of those things could be true, and my current mindset could be false.

At least I finally got one of my wishes today; I've overcome the writer's block I didn't even know I had, I'm managing to write what I feel in an eloquent and descriptive way, in earnest and in honesty.
I keep saying to myself lately "I wish I could write like Raven", He's so kind and clear in his replies to strong-minded and narrow-sighted comments of every sort. I get too emotional, in type and in person, I feel, or rather, felt that I wasn't very good at expressing myself in an earnest and helpful way, in a way that would set my opinion free without rising up in contest to other people's opinions. I've finally unlocked that ability right here, in this post, though I'm still a long way from the intricacy of writing like Jane Austen, and of speaking with the easy eloquence of my dad.

Society forgets the old and wise, while the young and fresh are institutionalized

As the river flows-

On, or off, The eyes that see-

begin to fade dull

Do what you want to do. Ageless.

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity."
~Christopher Morley (1890-1957)

Good advice. I wore a cape yesterday, it brought joy to my heart, and maybe a few smiles to other people's faces.

Must-see article.

The Shoestring Philanthropist rocks in my opinion! Maybe instead of studying with a bunch of different religions like the Amish, Quakers, and Buddhists when I come of age, I'll become a shoestring philanthropist for a few years :)

As I wrote in my journal after pasting the article in; 
"the article proves that it is the little things that count, and we can make things better on a much wider level than we'd ever thought. 
"That's beautiful.
"But then again, I think almost everything is beautiful..."

Theory

I have this theory: The teenage years are when children should be given more freedom of choice and will, this is their time to experiment within the safety net of their parents. It is likely that when they move out, when parents usually relax boundaries and set them totally free, they will no longer have a very secure safety net. The freedom can go to their heads, and they will often make bad choices. They shouldn't be given total control as teens, they still need boundaries, but they should also be treated as adults, with many chances to prove themselves.
Parents shouldn't be completely removed, but they shouldn't hover over their child's every choice and move. Rather, they should let the child know that they are there for them, and should always put down whatever it is they are doing in order to talk. Parents should be supportive, and open to everything their child has to say.

I will probably change this as time goes on. I might add things I have forgotten, or have not discovered yet. Thank you for reading, I appreciate your every insight on this post :)

How to....

I think i am getting reckless in my old age(Haha.) I used to be very close mouthed, but i got sick of that. Now I'm saying just a little too much, or else I'm not really thinking very hard about what i really want to say. I am dashing out my writing without much editing. I used to care too much, but now i care too little. What is it about extremes in us human beings? I (in particular) need to find balance. I need to relearn how to be careful and caring about certain things, but not so much that i won't ever talk or share what i write.
How can i do this? Hmmmmm... I can be careful and enthusiastic about things at the same time. I think that will help. Anything else? I'm not sure. I think that's it!
(I think my posts will get longer over time. Thanks for being patient, whoever you are)