The Grimoire Day 19

I don't want to do this today.  I had something in my head and I was just on the cusp of coming into the light, but then I had to tell the tale of work-related stress and some fool decided to enact one of those second amendment remedies the people who would be our leaders were threatening us with, and that's pretty much fucked it. I have two Clonopin left.  Taking them both, right about now.

Day 19


So here is my problem.  I'm going to try something different and not project so hard that you can use me to show PowerPoint slides and just talk about the problem like it's mine, but I hear tell this is a problem that is shared by every member of the human race with enough liesure time to pursue tasks that are not survival critical.  That is, put briefly and simply, I waste a good portion of my life with no clue what I want, and no notion about how to get it. 

 

This is not an easy skill, and most people are never taught to be clear about what they desire, or to be honest with themselves about it.  We rarely get beyond the 8th grade, standing with our asses to the bleachers looking across at the target of our affection, but daring not to admit our affections, let alone act on them. 

If you've won any lover with boldness, I salute you.  And I hazard that the number of lovers you have won thus are smaller than the number that you just sort of lucked into being with.  I was bold precisely once, by accident, and got two people simultaneously interested in me, and ended up with the one I had not been trying to woo.  It was a mess, I was 17.  I don't think it counts as being bold. 

And think, those are lovers, romantic partners, possibly life partners you were looking to win.  Terrifying, yes.  High stakes, and anyone who has woken up to the wasteland that is the world on the first morning after a heartbreak knows what happens when things go wrong. 

You would think, or maybe I did think, that in cases where the stakes are lower, or feel lower, it should be easier to face my desires, to understand them, and to act on them, but not so much.  I have been wrong about that.  The stakes don't matter so much as desire.  Stakes don't mater near so much as desire.

I have seen that finance book, and I'm sure you have as well Rich Dad Poor Dad; and I haven't read it, so I can't tell you what's inside, but I always figured that if there was any secret imparted by the upper classes to their children that isn't taught to us, it's how to want.  How to desire something for yourself enough that it compells you to do what you need to do in order to achieve it.  This is not a skill I have.  This is a skill that only a few people I know have any facility in, and, now that I think of it, all of them make a hell of a lot more money than I do.

So here is what I want from you on this admittedly very pretty winter day.  I want you to learn to want.  I want you to face your desires and look at them, to number and count them.  Shine them up and hold them to the light.  Some will be worthy and others won't.  Put the unworthy ones back.  I believe you will know which ones are worthy and which ones are not, but we will worry about those later.  In the meantime, look at what you want.  Name it.  Write it down somewhere.  Make some tangible thing that reminds you of what you want, because you are probably not well trained to want, yet.  I sure as fuck am not.

I want you to pick one.  Something that you can do in a month, or a couple of weeks, if a month's work is daunting you, or, shit, if you have to start small, start small, something you want that you could do tomorrow.  Not something you think you should do, not something you want for or because of someone else.  Not something you want because you think you should want it, something you want for yourself because you want it for yourself.  Once you learn to handle your desires, you will be a hundred times better at handling other peoples' desires.

Yeah, I guess I'd better back that one up.  Think about what you do for other people.  Think of how many times it exhausts you, how many times it pushes you back from your wants, how often it makes you resent.  Once you understand what you want, you'll start to figure out how it fits with what the people for whom you do things want.  If you know your desires, you can join them to the needs of others, and use the energy that what you want gives you to give others what they need.  It's a bold claim.  It's a tricky thing.  It takes work, but wanting a thing brings with it the energy to get that thing.

So, do something you want.  First you need to name it, and be specific about it.  It does me no good to say I want to have the first draft of a novel ready by Readercon.  What novel?  Which of the fucking dozen?  I'm not sure.  I want to decide what to write as a long project by the end of this week. 

I want to convert my new desk to a standing desk, whatever that requires, so I can work standing.  I'll be moving to my new desk by the end of January. 

I want to run another 10K by the end of February.

I want to have a playtest group and a game to test the week after next.

All these things are specific.  All these things have time frames.  All these things depend on actions I take.  I can succeed or fail at all or some of them, but I am going to try them all.  And I will tell you how they go.

Maybe I did want to do this part after all.