I happen to have seen an old blog before writing this. It's title was "I might have made a mistake 20 years ago". I wrote it slightly over a year ago. I remember writing it. It was near my darkest time. I was off unemployment but barely making rent. I wasn't at the worst depressive place that I could be, but it was pretty damn bad.
The blog was talking about how 20 years ago I was a very spiritual kid that meditated twice a day and was very sure about my future. I had this psychic impression that I had to leave the spiritual path in order to gain life experience. I knew that I was supposed to be a spiritual teacher when I was older, and I was willing to give up anything to become that.
In the last 20 years some truly hellish things have happened to me. More than once I lost faith in my beliefs as well as god and any sort of purpose to life. I dipped in and out of depression and though I always maintained that fading memory of who I was, I changed.
What is ironic is that the vision that that 17 year old had for me is where I am now. It's airy and a little surprising. Since I wrote that last year, my life has changed so much. I make my living writing. What I write to make a living is very surprising but every erotic sentence I write, and every wanting protagonist that I create, with every turn of phrase makes me a better writer.
Since a year ago I have written about 35 short stories. I make what I made as the starting salary of my last corporate job, and I now have the time to write the book that 17 year old envisioned me writing. How did this happen. How did that 17 year old envision this? Or how did I hold onto one vision of my life for so long?
But here is the thing, I wonder if what I will write will matter. I could just continue to make money. I could write more and more and try to hit 6 figures by the end of the year. I could have more adventure trips and maybe buy a house. I could just play for whatever time I have left in life and I could just turn my back. After all, how real could any of the vision I had for myself be. I may get some good reviews and there may be a few people whose lives are better for having read my books, but are a few strangers' lives worth the heart ache that comes with mediocre sales for a book that you have poured everything you've had into? Is having a profound effect on, what, 20 or 50 people's lives worth it? It certainly doesn't feel like it from where I sit.
I write erotica and I have people writing me telling me how much they like my stories and asking me when the next one is coming out. 'Samurai Zombie Hunter' was friggin' brilliant, yet 1 guy asked me if I was going to write a sequel. 1 person! If I pour all of my remaining time and passion into this friggin' young adult book and 1 person finds it worthy, then what is the friggin' point? What would be the friggin' point?! I'm starting to think that there isn't one.
Then again, there are little things that makes me doubt my doubts. I can't deny that things have happened in my life that reaffirms its purpose. How is it that I think that dead people talk to me and then the things that they say come true? How is it that coincidences always so clearly answer the questions that I have presented to "the universe?" How is it that the hurricane thing happened when I was 16 or the psychic thing happened on 9/11? These things did happen and they continue to. And if these things are real, if they continue to pepper my life, then there must be more to life than what we see. And if the 17 year old version of myself saw that greater vision, then how can ignore it.
The problem is that I've worked friggin' hard my entire life. When did I stop giving and simply enjoy? Who knows how much time I have left. Shouldn't I get to enjoy the fruit of my hard work at some point? And if I don't do it now, will I ever get the chance again. Do I want to put forth the monumental task of writing a series of 5 books when in the end only 1 kid could email me to say, "hey, I got something from your books"? If my life were a novel written by some depressed guy, maybe that one kid would enough, but my life isn't the work of a depress novelist. It's my creation.
You know what else makes me feel like I can step away and just enjoy my life? I know that I have fundamentally changed the lives of at least 1000 people. I only had about 200 people write me and tell me specifically, but for every person that writes, there has to be at the very least 5 who don't. I'm talking about from the series of youtube videos that I created. I've changed the direction of lots of people's lives. Haven't I done enough? Haven't I already done more than 90% of the people on this planet?
Yet, what if the reason that I should write this book isn't for some one else, but for myself? What if I need to write these stories for me? What if I'm trying to puff myself up in my own mind by thinking that I'm this great wise person, when the only people that writing these book will ever help is me? And not in some profound spiritual way, but in some basic way like, my simply needing to tell stories. What if I need to write these stories more than the world needs to read them? Jesus, how sad would that be? Fuck! Maybe I'm just some sad little writer that just needs to be heard to justify my life. And if I really step back and think about this logically, that does seem like the more reasonable explanation. Wow, how sad. How heartbreakingly sad.
On a separate, or maybe related note, my happiness mediation isn't working as well as it used to. I think that I need a massage to recharge it. The mediation is based on remembering what my last hand and foot massage felt like. But it's sort of like what happens when someone keeps rubbing the same spot on your arm, that spot goes numb. My hands and feet have gone numb to the constant remembering of the massages. I think I need to refresh those memories with actually massages. The question is who can I get to give me a massage?
I think I need to attract someone into my life that likes the idea of giving me massages. I know there are people like this out there. Oh how I remember the Swedish dancer and the other one who inspired my character in 'Happiness Thru the Art of Penis Enlargement'. I wonder if the the universe would hook me up with someone like that again. I wonder how I can make that happen?
And on news about the roommate wars, the whole thing is about to take a really dark turn. I realize that at this point, I want to win more than I want him out. He did this, though. Instead of just being reasonable, he basically said that I couldn't get him out of my home even if I tried. He challenged me. I would never back down to a challenge like that. I would never back away from a challenge over who controls my life. So now I have to win and I have to pay for my apartment by myself.
Ya know, I liked having another live body in the apartment; not him, but everyone before him. And there is going to be a lot of pressure for my books to sell once he does move out. And here I am about to devote months of my life to writing some crap, non-selling books. I rarely doubt myself, but I am having doubts right now. I am having doubts.
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