I’ve actually been feeling better since I acknowledged that I’m too tired to do much of anything, and stopped making myself wrong for not getting things done. Stopped pushing myself.
from my journal Wednesday, November 25
Another amazing talk with Erica. I came out of it accepting that once again I’m trying to do too much, more than I have energy for. Seeing yet again that I have failed to live as “wild, wide, and creative a life” as I have gifts for. Do I still matter? Do the failures matter? What about the person on the back ward, stunned with drugs? What I see now is that that person still matters, that their “failure” is a consequence of an unfair system, not a character flaw.
I sit here, one hand open, holding my heavy head, one hand closed, holding the pen like a weapon, like a hypodermic.
I write, I type, I post. This is my existence.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
By constantly greater beings.
The last lines are from a poem by Rilke. I think I must have heard them on a CD by David Whyte, but am not sure. They are the end of a long poem.