It’s Time (Previously: It Might Be Time)

Update, an hour later: I walked away. Cue Cream, “I Feel Free.” Below now represents the movement towards a decision.

Been here countless times before, that feeling of walking along the precipice of The Work, the razor's edge between continue on or walk away.

The pattern, recurrent, for five years running: I get to this point, where there's no light at either end of the tunnel, of not knowing what's next or even an inclination of it, and The Work says, No, wait! and something works or I think it does and I continue on in the same pattern ad infinitum.

But this time feels different.

A question explored: is this current book The Work or is The Work just my name for Sartre's "fundamental project," (a concept of which I was unaware until I came across it in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's FLOW... note: add Sartre to to-read stack) that unifying existential thing that gives life purpose? This current book being, then, not The Work itself, but a piece of it.

Leaning, certainly, towards "just a component" now, much more so than I was even a day or so ago. Thinking of something Bowie said:

"... If you feel safe in the area that you're working in, you're not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don't feel your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

Maybe the current book is where I feel safe and a writing life without it, with something new, is that extra few steps into deeper water. Or maybe it's the other way 'round, staying with the current book being deeper in the water. But I've been swimming in the same depth for five years now. So maybe that answers my question. Maybe it's time to let myself drift just a little further into the unknown.

I've never met the writer that I am without the current book. Maybe that's what The Work needs right now. Maybe it's time to stop wondering and see what it's like without my feet touching bottom.

Five fucking years.

I really don't know – all I do know is that something has changed, that something has shifted. A feeling that I've given it its due?

All of this, of course, is subject to change; this ramble being simply an expression of where I am in the present moment. But present moments past have been a lot – too many – of these moments and I'm uncertain of how many more I want to allow into my life.