The Success Man

I have always wondered what exactly success is, feels like, tastes like and looks like. Is success having a roof over your head and food in the refrigerator? Is it being able to pay your bills? Is it staying true to the cravings of your soul, the images in your youthful dreams? Does it look like that guy driving around in the newest Audi, the actor on the screen or the rock star being idolized by thousands of adoring fans while on stage? To be honest, I am confused by exactly what success is and what it means. Through trial and error, I am at least confident saying that I know what success is not. Success is not having to earn a living doing something that has little to do with your dream. Success does not involve too much compromise and/or settling. Success is not having to ask your father to take you clothes shopping when you are 40, unemployed and shackled with a large amount of debt.

But then again maybe success is a state of mind, a way of thinking, a belief system. At least this is what I am hoping is the case. In my life I have had two serious dreams that have not born serious monetary fruit or worldly attention. I wanted to be a professional tennis player when I was younger and then after I started reading and drinking more I decided to trade that dream in for the dream of being a writer/painter. Despite the fact that neither of these dreams have yet to work out (the only real chance I have of achieving my professional tennis dream is maybe getting to compete some day on the senior citizens professional tennis circuit), I still try to keep my spirit up and convince myself that I have indeed been successful. After all, I have a beautiful and loving fiance, a roof over my head, a fridge full of food, nice clothes hanging in my closet (even though these clothes seem to be food for moths), a newish fully owned car that works (but that I struggle to afford), various opportunities, positively influence a few people in my lifetime, good working headphones and an iPod filled with a plethora of good music. The current NOW of my life is really good- but is it successful?

Often times I feel this inner void that sneaks up on me. I try to fill it in with various foods and things, but the void consumes these things faster than I can chew them down or purchase them. What is this void? From where does it come? Shall I call it existential? A chronic feeling of dissatisfaction that is the result of not fully living my dream? Is it not fair to say that our consumer society has been built upon temporarily satisfying and alleviating these failed dreams? Last night while I was lying in bed I found myself in a bit of a funk. I get into these funks whenever I think too much about what I do not have, what I have not been able to achieve. I ask myself if I am doing with my life exactly what I want to be doing, am I doing what I was born to do? I also wonder if I am seen by others for who I am, not for who I have to be? Are there a lot of should of, would of and could of thoughts running around in my mind? I was also thinking about what Jay Z (one of the wealthiest and most successful black men in the world) said about ordinary success. In an article I read he talked about how he feels sad for people who have to go to work everyday to achieve ordinary success, the same kind of success as the majority of other people. Jay Z discussed how he feels particularly sad for those individuals who have to pursue ordinary success because their dreams did not work out. Tell me about it.

“If you could be doing exactly what you wanted, what would it look like?” my fiance asked me as I lay besides her in bed. “I would have a decent sized painting and writing studio, no debt, no obligation to go to a job and would be able to be immersed in my creative work and earn a living pursuing my creative aspirations.” “Is there not a happy medium you could find?” she asked. “What do you mean?” I replied. “I mean can you not do your work as a therapist so you can pay your bills and help others but also spend an equal amount of time doing your writing and painting?” I found myself feeling frustrated by this suggestion. Aggravation grew in my chest as I thought about what little energy I already have left. I wanted to say “do you really think I have the energy to work as a therapist and also seriously pursue my artistic work?” Instead I just took a deep breath and let it out. I then figured out what success might be- getting to spend the majority of your energy on doing the work that you want to do, getting to be engaged with your life’s work/purpose on a full-time basis. Basically, not having to find a happy medium.

I suppose this may be why I envy certain actors, musicians, writers and artists- they get to make a living doing their life’s work and do not have to return to graduate school, go into serious debt in order to build a decent and worth while career. Their soul work is acknowledged in the world, not just in the privacy of their own minds. As I turned out the light and shut my eyes to go to sleep, I realized that I am the one who has made certain choices in my life. Sure I may not have had parents who supported my dreams but maybe I never believed strongly enough that I was capable of achieving whatever I put my mind to. Maybe I smoked too much dope. I doubted myself and did not do all I could of done to turn my dreams into some kind of tangible reality (here is an example of one such could of statement I live with). Such is life- it is the deck of cards that I have been dealt. I am almost 41 years old and about to embark upon a new career as a psychotherapist. Being a psychotherapist did not enter into my youthful dreams but I figure that it is better than waiting tables. No, I do not consider myself a success man, but I am open to the idea that maybe some day I will. In my back pocket I still carry around a wallet sized portion of hope that I have enough time on earth to see at least a part of my youthful dreams become a reality. I will keep doing my part, keep showing up, keep writing and painting and keep remaining open to possibilities and inspiration rather than compartmentalized by a profession. However, now I may just have to begin to work on finding a “happy medium.”

I Swallowed My Wedding Ring, Part 2.

I returned home from the hospital a few hours ago. It was a minor procedure. Since my own digestive system was incapable of removing my wedding ring I had to rely on modern medical techniques to do so. I was subjected to a metallic probe (with a camera) that was inserted in my anus and then loitered around my intestines until the wedding ring was found stuck in a pocket of my colon. The probe delicately latched on to the ring, dragging it out from my system in the same manner that a baby would be removed from the womb. The pain was slight since I was heavily sedated (and still am) and I was kept in the hospital for a night following the procedure to make sure my colon did not go into frenetic spasms.

My Doctor has asked me to spend the next few days in bed. He wants me to drink plenty of fluids and remain lying on my back for at least twenty hours a day. His concern is that since my wedding ring was stuck in a very narrow pocket of my colon there was some bruising done. The colon is a very sensitive organ and his fear is that it may become swollen as a result of the trauma. This is why I am only allowed to eat fruit and drink water for the next week. When I was leaving the hospital my Doctor asked me if I had learned anything from this experience. “I have learned to keep my wedding ring out of my mouth,” I said. He looked at me as if he was waiting for a more insightful reply. Did you learn anything else?” he patiently asked. I thought for a moment and replied- “to love and care for my wife for the rest of my life.” This answer came from some place deep in my gut, rather than from my mind. It was as if the Doctor had implanted in me the knowledge that I had been given a second chance to make my marriage work. “Swallowing your wedding ring may have been a blessing for your marriage,” the Doctor said with a smile and then disappeared from my room. As my wife pushed me in my wheelchair out from the hospital I could not stop telling her how much I loved her.

I am still very tired and must return back to bed. I have only gotten up to write this brief entry. I wanted to let you know that this terrible story has had a happy ending. Even though I am still high on various pain medications, my wedding ring is back upon the safe confines of finger. My wife has been caring for me and despite my weak condition- we have made love twice. I have pledged my renewed love to her over and over and thanked the heavens above that this chapter in my life has had a good ending. While lying in bed I have often thought about what would of happened had I never swallowed my wedding ring? I may have not just lost my wife, but also this love which now floods my heart- in holly matrimony ofcourse.

I Swallowed My Wedding Ring.

This evening while I was sitting on the couch reading a novel, I accidentally swallowed my wedding ring. You may be wondering why, or how? Well, I believe that I suffer from certain oral fixations or obsessive compulsive disorder. When I am writing or reading I seem to need to have something in my mouth- constantly. Tonight I pulled the ring off my finger with my lips and sucked on it in my mouth as if it was a candy. I stuck my tongue through its hole and ran it around along my teeth. I was not terribly aware of what I was doing since I was so engrossed in the book I was reading.

My wedding ring is made out of one ounce of white gold. It is a thick ring that rests on my finger like a small weight (reminding me of my eternal commitment). How I managed to have it in my mouth without noticing boggles my mind. I first became aware of what was taking place when I felt the metallic sensation of the ring passing down my throat. I choked for a moment and then started to cough when I realized what I had just done. Panic came over me and I ran into the bathroom and tried to make myself vomit. I thought that I could die as a result of swallowing my wedding ring. I thought about my obituary- man dies by swallowing his wedding ring, as my whole body began to shake. When minutes passed and I was still alive but unable to regurgitate my wedding ring, I called my wife into the room and told her what happened.

As she stood in front (I was on my knees in front of the toilet bowl) of me aghast at what I had done, I felt the a cold metallic sensation skipping around in my intestines. I was not sick but terribly uncomfortable. “You are so absent minded! You forget to turn off the heat, to feed the cat and now you swallow your wedding ring!! When are you going to get it together- you need to wake up!!!” I knew she was letting off steam so I allowed her to freely vent. She had spent her last two thousand dollars to buy me this ring and now I had just swallowed it. As far as she was concerned the ring was gone, buried in the penetralia of my intestinal regions. “Baby don’t worry, I’ll either shit it out or have it surgically removed,” I said to her as she dropped to her knees. “When are you going to wake up!!” she kept repeating as I sat on the floor with my hands on my stomach and a feeling of anxiety in my chest.

My grandmother always told me that if I was going to be a reader of fiction, that I should prepare myself for not being in the world. What she meant was that a symptom of reading fiction is being absent minded in day to day life. My grandmother felt that fiction readers (and poetry readers) lived in a world of thought and fantasy rather than reality. I disagreed with her until I was in my ninth year of reading fiction every day. I started doing stupid, absent minded things like rear ending cars and forgetting to pull up my zipper because I was thinking about the plot of a book. But now I have swallowed my wedding ring. This act of mine makes me feel like my grandmothers words were a prophetic warning.

My wife was able to get control over herself and called a poison control center. They told her that if I do not poop out the ring by tomorrow morning that I should go to the emergency room. They recommended that I eat prunes and lots of fiber to move my bowls. My wife slowly came to a state where she could take pity upon my state and began to treat me like a man who needed help. She made me prune tea and put a blanket over me while I lied flat out on the couch. She has been rubbing my head and cynically uttering comical comments like “you are so silly.” I am yet to poop out the ring but it is my hope that after a few more cups of prune tea and a good nights rest that I will be wearing my wedding ring by lunch time tomorrow.

The Fly.

I am trapped in this body that seems to be changing or aging at a rate that I can not control. With a life span of three to five days- there is so much to be done. Since my birth I have been happily confined to this labyrinthine Victorian home that has harbored generations of my family. We spend our days buzzing through ancient hallways made out of pine wood and we tan ourselves up against thin glass windows filled with sunlight and heat. The windows reflect our infernal images back upon our dilated eyes revealing an ugliness that I am just starting to come to terms with- and I am already three days old. My mother always told me that if I did not come to terms with my image in the window by the time I was three days old- I would never find peace.

With two days left to live there is so much to accomplish (I am confident that I will live to the ripe old age of five days…maybe even six). So many rooms to fly around in, so many walls to investigate. The home in which I was raised is filled with various plants and antiquated furniture so enjoyable to fly upon that I gladly forget that more than half of my life has been lived. All of the pressures involved in being a fly (the pressure to reproduce before my old age sets in and the pressure of flying enough in my life so that I can die with a felling of fulfillment) seems to become mitigated by the pleasure of resting upon a silk arm chair or an aloe plant and reciting the verse of Emily Dickinson. If you had told me that being a fly would involve such a great desire to do and see things I would have thought you were nuts. When I was young I had always thought that flies were anxious little creatures with a spasmodic will and a pestersome bzzzzz. Never could I have imaged the wonder filled world of the fly I have found out about in my later years. The beauty of flying naked and weightless through long hallways and landing upon warm afternoon windows. The beauty of crawling along ceilings and landing on the heads of humans. Tears come to my eyes when I think about how much there is to live for.

I keep to myself most of the day perpetuating no rumors about fellow flies. I spend a lot of time sunbathing upon the guest bedroom window. There I can be left alone, freed from the frenetic activity of fellow flies. I can clean my nimble legs and antenna and design ways in which I will fly to the moon on my last day of life. I am able to dream of other worlds where spirit flies still live and roam freely through hallways and furnished homes. I imagine my ancestors watching over me as I make my way through out the various rooms. Being a fly requires a strong constitution- when you are allotted only five days to live, the fear of death can be crippling, but even more so the awe of life can become overwhelming.

I make my way alone most of the time. It is true that my only purpose for living is not simply to spend my days in such a perplexed state of awe. I have my biological obligations to fulfill. The need to perpetuate my species weighs upon my soul to such a degree that I am not able to spend the days in mindless contemplation like I once did when I was young. I feel as if there is something more important that I need to be tending to. Before I come upon my final day- it is pertinent that I find a way to bring forth another me, a next of kin. Through this process of reproduction, us flies find immortality. This is how we make sense of our three to five days of life. We reproduce, and through our children become immortal. Like my father always told me, “A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.”

Even though I have been hard at work searching for a female fly to mate with- I have come up empty today. Night is almost upon us and after dark I have a tendency to stay put for the rest of the evening. I find particles of food (usually cat feces which I love) in various places and then rest in a safe spot until the heat of the sun returns to the windows. Tomorrow will be the fourth day of my life- what most flies refer to as the early evening of a flies life. I will spend the day searching for a mate- and into the evening if I must. If the midnight hour falls and I am yet to find the one who will give my child a chance to be born, I am willing to resign myself to a life spent alone, in awe- upon a window. Others may think that I have failed in my purpose (or utility) but I am willing to accept the responsibility of not living up to others expectations. It is a small price to pay for the hours of wonder and solitary pleasure I have experienced being a fly.

The Bullshit Guru

I will tell you a story until you believe it is true. At a certain point there will be doubt and apprehension but as you continue to listen to my words your ability to resist my bullshit will be undone. I do not know if it was a gift that I was born with or a skill that I have cultivated over many years of lying. True I come from a long lineage of bullshit guru’s but I believe my abilities surpass any genetic predisposition. I have made bullshit into such an art form that the world has become my ashram and all the little people in it my devoted disciples.

If magic could be explained, would it be magic? I do not know why my bullshit is believed by all. The stories that I tell are organically ejected out of a mind with little consideration of principle or limitation. I speak my mind and usually it is a cleverly interpreted lie. How I got this way I do not know. Sometimes I believe it stems from a deep seeded love for the fictitious and all things literary. At other times I feel as if my bullshit is nothing more than a symptom of boredom. Nonetheless my intentions are good, but what they are I am not quite sure.

If you leave me alone in a room for ten minutes with a group of a dozen strangers chances are I will have them thinking about things they had never considered. We would speak about the nature of self, the way to find inner happiness and the practice of truth. I would talk to them like a man who knows the answers and has traveled the path. I have counseled many wayward souls and steered them back upon a course that I know not how to direct. I speak about things that I can not practice. Sure there is nothing unnatural about this- but I speak like one who knows. Because of my fictitious fallacies I have followers from all around the globe who come to me with questions ranging from the simple to the profound. I council Bloggers on ways to cultivate concentration or imagination so the quality of their being will grow complete. The irony is I know not what I speak off- I simply speak and out comes the freak.

The other day one of my sweet devotes deemed me the bullshit guru. She told me that I was full of it- when she caught me in a tale that she knew to be untrue. She knew that I had yet to attain the level of enlightenment that I was speaking about since just the other day she had to lend me a xanax because of an anxiety attack that rendered me helpless. “Even though it is bullshit,” she said “I still like your stories. So I will continue to speak, to council and to blog until my bullshit has grown so constipated that nothing no longer is willing to come out. Feel free to seek me out for words of wisdom in your time of need.

Namaste.

Why I Write?

I gave a reading of a short story I wrote at a small bookstore not far from my home. In a crowd of not more than ten, a young woman raised her hand and asked me why I write. I was stretched to find an answer that aligned itself with truth. I was silent (which was a truer statement than my reply) and said “because it is something that I feel like I have to do.” After the reading I came home with a feeling of uncertainty about my relationship with writing. I sat in my kitchen, drank a glass of red wine and pondered the question, “why do I write?” I took out a note pad and tried to write an answer down but was incapable of bringing forth any letters. I poured myself another glass of wine, and with a feeling of deep defeat I decided to call it a night.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by what sounded like coins being dropped in my bathroom sink. Ever since I was a child I have been afraid of strange sounds in the middle of the night but I put together the courage to go ahead and investigate. My mouth felt dry from dehydration and my eyes were having difficulty adapting to the dark. When I walked into the bathroom I was shocked by what I saw as soon as I turned on the light. I noticed what looked like individual letters jumping around in my bathroom sink. There was a Z and an M hobbling around on my faucet and a G, C and an L spinning around in the base of the terracotta sink. I rubbed my eyes and patted my cheeks to make sure I was not stuck in a dream. I took a deep breath and was certain that I was awake. I walked closer to the sink and looked down upon the words which danced around like some sort of vibration was possessing them.

I then noticed on my toothbrush a W and R. All over the floor were smaller a,e,i,o, and u hobbling around like they had returned from a meal in which they had eaten too much. I was perplexed, dumbfounded by this strange invasion of letters. I heard strange pattering sounds in my bathtub and of course I found more letters slithering around on the tub floor. I lifted up an H and a T and placed them in the palm of my hand. They felt warm to the touch and caused me no fear. I then picked up the W and the R and they quickly ran up my arm and into my hair. I repeated this with the vowels and before I knew it I was covered in words. I fell onto the floor laughing like a mad man…tickled by W and the Vowels which got stuck under my arm pits and in my groin. While rolling on the bathroom floor more letters climbed onto my body. They made their way into my ears and between my fingers. I managed to stand back up on my own two feet even though I was dizzy with laughter. My scalp felt like it was being massaged and my groin felt aroused. In the bathroom mirror I noticed a reflection of myself. “I am covered in the alphabet!!” I shouted out loud with a roaring laugh. They moved all around me like a pack of wild ants. I made my way over towards my bed delighted by the letters which had seduced me without the slightest hint of ill-will or malevolent intention. I laid out on my bed and watched the letters run all upon me. I saw R run around with T and Z jump off of my nose and a,e,i,o and u scramble around on my arm. I was so pleased to be lying on my bed playing with these letters like a child lost in his imagination- that I suddenly realized why exactly it is that I write.

Writer’s Block

I have been staring at a blank page for most of my life. I have done all I can with not just my left hand but also my right. I have tried yoga and long walks. My therapist recommended to me that I take up singing. So I have done this each day. I have taken cooking lessons, taken up meditation, started burning incense, moved to the woods, eat vegan, and participate in S&M parties. I do a headstand every morning for thirty minutes and chew sugarless gum through out the day. Still there is little evidence of a Writer on the paper before me.
Since the age of six I have dreamed of becoming a Writer. My parents took my sister and I on a family outing in Napa Valley. As we were driving along a desolate country road I noticed a small cabin. A man sat smoking what looked like a pipe on the porch. I asked my Father about who that was and he said, “probably a poor Hermit or failed Writer.” From that day forward I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Thirty-three years later and I am still unable to write. People ask me what I do and I use the noun, Writer. When I am asked if my work can be read I utilize the pronoun, aspiring. It is a course that I navigate with trepidation. “Will I ever write anything?” is a question that lingers in my head like a chronic migraine. It hurts. And every so often I take aspirin.  Days before my father passed on I assured him that I would be able to make a living as a Writer.

“But you don’t write.”
“I can’t but I will.”
“When?
”I try every day.”
”Son, when will you see?”
“When I write.”
“But you can’t write.”
“I will.”
“Son you can’t be a Writer if you don’t write.”
“I will write.”

My father passed away with a knot in his gut tightened by my incapability to pragmatically reason. Every day I look at a blank page and am reminded of my failure. I see emptiness and small circuitous hints of a letter. I have become so acquainted with the color of a blank page that I can tell time by the way it reflects shadow. Each morning, I sit at my desk to write my unfulfilled potential off the page. Still nothing comes. I sit there and breathe deeply. I straighten my back as if that will help awaken an idea. “Maybe, it will slip through my spine and out onto the empty page, and then there will be the story,” I think. A narration so profound, that my career as a Writer will be unleashed.  But my spine is tight from all my hunching and my right hand has been waiting to write a word since my left hand refused to wait anymore. “It is a lonely heart that has no hope,” my father once told me.

I visit my therapist in town twice a week. She is a skinny woman who suffered from anorexia most of her life. Years of struggle have carved lines into her face and make her an asset to those who face similar struggles. She slowly eats a banana while we commune. I am confident that she can help me because of her past. She always allows me to stay longer then my allotted fifty minutes.

“Have you been singing?”
”I sing every day, mostly in the shower or on a walk.”
“How does it make you feel?”
“Good, I forget about my Writer’s block.”
“Have you been thinking about new ways to live your life?”
“I have.”
“What have you decided?”
“To think less.”
“This is why I thought singing would be good.”
”It helps me to stop thinking.”
”It is your thoughts that keep you blue.”
”I see.”
“Do you still do head stands?”
“Every morning.”
“Do you still think about your father?”
“All the time.”
“One day you will change the story you tell yourself.”
“I want to write my story.”
“You will.”

After therapy, I drive my old truck back to the house in the woods feeling renewed and hopeful. The story that I tell myself is slowed down. The thoughts in my head are not as filled with failure and doom. There is space for better thoughts to appear.
But the page remains blank. It sits there upon my desk like a neglected pet awaiting my return. I tell myself only a matter of time and I go to work doing other things. I keep myself busy with household chores and I keep introducing myself to strangers as a Writer.

“Want a good story,” she said to me dressed in leather straps that barley covered her holly trinity (breasts, butt and ass). I pictured it happening differently but decided to go along with it anyways. The party was filled with middle-aged voyeurs gathering around small dungeons set up with enough equipment to destroy Eros. I followed her into a section called The Den Of Inequity and felt the air around my head grow warm. She told me her name but I have since forgotten. All I really remember is a small hole on the bottom of her foot that she told me was the result of an accident.
“You want to play, right?” she asked me, wanting to asssure herself that I was certain about the consequences of my decision. “I want a story,” I replied with a hint of fear in my voice. I took off my shirt, pants and underwear and was dressed in leather briefs. ”I’ll give you the story of your life pervert man,” she said as she strapped my wrists and ankles to a disinterested wooden board. After being lashed, electrocuted, stepped on, spit on, spanked, tied upside down, laughed at, called coward, whipped, humiliated and then applauded by a group of spectators- I got dressed and anticipated the story I may finally have to tell. I drove home quickly so as not to forget.

Nothing wanted to come out, despite the sores and bruises, which I hoped would help me to remember. Not even and, if or but. I struggled to remember any words that could describe the feelings that I experienced. All I seemed capable of thinking was “its got to be good.” There was once again no story to be written on the blank page. No words willing to lend themselves to the perfection that I demanded to describe my experience. It was as if words had renounced the man before he could even give them an opportunity to live. I was not frustrated but becoming hopeless again.  In my head I wanted to live but on the page I could not exist. For one hour that evening I lay on my couch with ice over various parts of my naked body feeling like a failure.

“Why did you let her do those things to you?”
“You are my therapist, not my mother.”
“I understand but it is important that I know.”
“Because I wanted a story.’
”You wanted a story?”
“I thought that an experience would give me something to write about.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
“And why do you think this is so?”
“I am not sure.”
“Maybe its because you can not stop telling your self the old story.”
“What old story?”
“The one we talk about here.”
“I do not understand.”
“The story of hopelessness, failure, guilt, worthlessness.”
“Oh.”
”Maybe when this story goes away you will have a new story to write.”
“Maybe.”

That afternoon I went to my cooking class and then stopped at the market. In the evening I went to a yoga class and a bookstore. I purchase a popular book about water. The premise of the book was strange and had nothing to do with anything I had ever thought. It was a book written by a Japanese Scientist who studied the ways that water molecules responded to thoughts. He photographed water crystals and studied how they formed in relation to various thoughts or words. He observed that positive thoughts or words formed beautiful water crystals while negative thoughts or words created ugly and deformed water crystals. His conclusion was that since human beings are mainly a collection of millions of water crystals, the thoughts we have and words we use create our health and disease.
For dinner I made a pizza and read the book by candlelight. Outside the silence was loud enough that I could hear it vibrating in my ears. I chewed my food without the sensation of eating and quickly made my way through the book. I thought about the story I told myself and noticed the scenes from my life that lined up in my mind as if on paper. It was a story of unfulfilled potential that went all the way back to my fathers remark: “probably a poor Hermit or failed Writer.” It was a negative unraveling that was set up in me from the moment that I decided to become a Hermit and a Writer thirty-three years before. My water crystals were destined to grow deformed. I went to bed that night thinking that my father had unknowingly put a curse on me.

“Do you think this realization is true?”
“I do.’
”Your Writer’s block is the result of your fathers curse?”
“Maybe not a curse, but a negative imprint.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am toxic water.”
”Toxic water?”
”Yes, I am polluted and filled with deformed water crystals.”
“You read the book about water?”
“Yes.”
“And what did it reveal to you?”
”That I can change.”
“So you see how the story you tell yourself creates your life.”
“Creates deformed water crystals.”
“Yes, and these deformed water crystals are you.”
“I see.”
“Change your story, change your life.”
“Easier said than done.”

I don’t know if the Writer’s block will ever go away. I stand on my head every day and I try to think pleasant thoughts. Rather than seeing the block as a silence that is permanent I see it as an oppurtunity to express potential. Recently, I have been experiencing a strange phenomenon. When I wake in the morning and sit before the empty page I look into it with the determination of an artist. I am fascinated by its depth and dimension. Outlined in vague print I can see a scetch of my new story, fully realized on the blank page. There it is before me, a story written in the most beautiful prose. It is a story that will continue on indefinately until the end of all blank pages. Every writer that has ever lived and failed to write is apart of this story. It is the story of my entire life.

The End.