Moulting season
Writing can be therapeutic, but it can also be harmful: via negative self-talk that reinforces limiting beliefs, wallowing and becoming even more stuck in the mire rather than getting out of it, and even constructing a false reality that in fact is much worse than the real world.
The map is not the territory.
Alfred Korzybski
There is no separate mental realm of ideas, no matter how introverts and bookworms like myself may intuitively believe. There is the world, and there is us in it, and on good days — on vacations away from the demands and distractions of modern life — that is quite enough. Swimming in a pool, fully immersed in water and thinking only about keeping a smooth, steady pace, there's no room for anything but being present.
Writing about something is not the same as doing something about it. Writing can be instrumental in clarifying thinking, making plans, communicating, and even changing minds, but more often than not this is just part of the process. The important question is always: so what are you going to do about it?
Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
Winston Churchill
I keep having to learn this lesson over and over as I continue the struggle to break free from the cage that is my own head, my own fears and limiting beliefs, my own convoluted but inaccurate maps. Ah, but what else is life but growing into and then out of a succession of personas, stories, selves? Life goes on, and we all simply do what we have to, all that we can.
Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
This essay is part of a month-long series of 30 essays.