A Morning Exercise

_____________ 11; 2/1 O my anguish! Google makes all these writing spaces so opportune; I make all the sincere commitments; and, lo, I do not keep up my end of the writing bargain! O, for shame! Well, that may have been a bit melodramatic. But it is almost close to half of what I feel about writing. Make that a third of what I feel about writing, for there are two other aspects as well. But the first, at least for this exercise, is about shame and guilt; I know the difference and both are present. Guilt is easy: I’m guilty of not keeping my commitment to writing. I just have not done what I feel an urge to do, what I think I can do. Guilty. Guilty and not shameless. For I could do. Shameful am I about not writing because so much of the reason I don’t is laziness. At least I think it's laziness. I’ve come to realize that “writing”, easy as it is to sit at a keyboard, is not an easy endeavor. At the very least one must energize the arthritic joints and muscles of the upper body, especially the wrists, hands and fingers, which are too often the most painful joints. Then of course there is the effort to engage the brain in a focused, and dedicated way. That means allowing for the preclusion of other thoughts that just might otherwise have passed through unsought. And being slow at typing means more time away from rambling thoughts, despite how brilliant the combination of keyboard and word-processing application. All of this is not to mention yet the need -depending on the genre- of research; getting up and out of the chair and house to learn some detail of what one would comment on, or write about. And of course, I have both the time and the means, the accouterment. The shame comes at not energizing, focusing, and dedicating time and effort as needed and possible; not making use of time. O, shame! Another aspect, or third (though I may be losing track of what that other third is), has to do with my distract-ability; my inclination toward vacillation and ambivalence. Again, I know the difference. I vacillate amongst genre -personal essaying and non-fiction writing such as about personality, though I could do either one or both. I vacillate over topic and subject. (I have an incredible number of essays drafted to at least topic/subject element) I have difficulty getting started -or continuing on, concluding. In ambivalence, I wonder about the conceit of writing at a level that too many exceed. I wonder about the virtue of contributing to what may already be a cacophony. I wonder about the possibility of embarrassing my family (I sometimes think, for myself, I could stand the sting of critique. Maybe.). Ah, and now I am recalling the third aspect that I had at the outset of this exercise. I may be no writer at all. This aspect takes into consideration and follows from the first two aspects: laziness, lack of dedication, wasting of time and resources, vacillation and ambivalence; distracted by other demands (shoveling snow, playing racquetball, tending the garden), others’ interests. Maybe I am not a writer. But then, I did at least do this exercise this morning. Oh, and by the way (I dislike “btw”), I am, after all, an IntP (yes, with emphasis on the I and the P). So I may yet be a writer, but a writer -like anything else- within the confines of my own personality, as indeed, we all must be. And further, as I now come to see, though I am dominantly Introverted and Perceiving (sometimes characterized as procrastination), my Self seeks growth toward the E and J elements of my personality; elements that through my life remained supportive out of sight, undeveloped in their own right. And so it is, that despite all, I am once again encouraged; the Write Everyday exercise is reinvigorating, and like physical exercise, worth the time spent. I’ll be back.