Sunday, January 2, 2011

Navigating the inner and outer waterways

You enjoy the prospect of bringing a writing project "outside," which is to say executed at least in part away from your usual place of preference, where there is relative quiet.  Such inner noises to be heard are those you make for yourself, perhaps in vocal argument with your committee of personnel, or perhaps a mutter of approval, even of satisfaction.  Just as likely, the ambient sounds are some music of your choice to supply the energy of a particular passion.

When you are here, "inside," distractions are apt to be met with the same squirt of irritation you experience when you are wrested from an intense dream, the key being the measure of intensity rather than the pleasure or displeasure of a dream you have landscaped for yourself.  Either way, the sounds are you and of your making; they reflect a comfortable, connected-with-the-universe aggregate you.

There is an edge to you that seeks coffee shop or library as a place to dig into the essence of a project; it is a combined edge of loneliness, relaxed focus, remoteness from the driving intent, a distance from forces of personal gravity that attracts bodies to you and you to them.  When you are in this state, you are more apt to welcome distraction, the social you in charge now, working the room, emitting hints of good conversation to come.

These are both aspects of you in purposeful action, the representative duality that is you.  It is a duality that is tidal, each having its resident harbor pilot, the expert at navigating the reefs and shoals of the particular moment.

Sometimes these aspects meet in the equivalent of the hallway, the gregarious you throwing a salute to the edgy, irascible, inside you, the curmudgeon making eye contact and nodding, each somehow convinced the projects and goals that define your waking agendas would be better managed if he were in more complete command, delegating a short tour of duty to the other out of some attempt at unity, yet each aware of the absolute necessity of the other to have a say in the routes taken, the quality of the destination, and the greater sense of the importance of the journey rather than the demonstrable technique of the navigation.

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