Analysis or Life?

Warning: This is a no-edit zone...

Yesterday, I spent the entire day doing background work on a fabulous new series: creating settings and rules of the realm, characters and developing plot lines. I love those days because the flush of enthusiasm burns like a welcome fire, the interest level is sky high and focus is tight--so tight that the mind is snapping with possibilities: Oh, oh, include this! Ouch, forget that--oh, wait, what about this! See where it goes if this happens? Damn. Hit a wall, a mud puddle, a panacea!!!

The birth of fiction is energizing on a book. On a series, it's like live wires cracking and whipping in a storm. And the writer gets to experience all the emotion of creation and feel that warm glow that lets them know they are definitely onto something special. It's an awesome experience.

And a rewarding one for a writer. Backside to leather requires discipline and on warm, sunny days, it can be hard-won discipline. So immersing in this polar opposite of unbridled creative energy is a wonderful experience on its own--and a perfect balance to the disciplinarian.

By the time I stopped last night, I felt as if I'd run a marathon and I was drained. I fully expected that when I shut down and relaxed, my mind would continue to whirl for hours. It often does. But what did happen surprised me.

It didn't whirl. Instead, my mind was calm--and on a different, though related, topic. And that was on analysis and how much time we spend analyzing everything. So much time that too often we don't have time to experience life!

We think about what happened, why it happened, how it happened, who it happened to, why it happened to them specifically, all of the other people indirectly impacted, and what will trigger it happening again--if it can happen again, and if it can't, why it can't and if that can be altered. See what I mean?

I'm not saying that analysis isn't valuable, it is. But it's like anything in excess, it's, well, too much, and we lose the good in it under the weight of the excess. If we are moderate, we know what we need to know and we are content with that, then we have more time to actually live life rather than be distracted from it by excess analysis or anything else.

It happened. Does it matter why? Will it change circumstance to know why? If so, explore. If not, live instead.

It doesn't pay to rehash the past for the sake of rehashing it. If you're paralyzed on forward mobility because of the past, then revisit it. But get what you need and then get back to forward momentum because each day spent dwelling on the past is a day spent without living in the present with an eye toward the future. Days such as that cannot be recaptured or regained.

I thought about this for a long time last night. And I thought of all the events I've rehashed in my mind time after time--good events and bad ones--and what a waste of life that really was. Memories are great, but to have them you have to make them. And if you're stuck rehashing the past, well, the only memories you're making are memories of memories. Living life has so much more to offer!

I awakened this morning and this ran through my mind again--analysis or life--only this time, the thought was about what religions and philosophers throughout time have said on the subject. I had to smile. Had I thought of this topic in this context first, the answers were there waiting for me. But there is good that comes in working through something in your mind until you resolve it--provided you're not avoiding a solution because it requires an action you don't want to take. Joseph Campbell, bless him, nailed it in short order. "Follow your bliss."

Smiling here. Follow your bliss kind of sums it up. If you do that, you're going to be spending a lot more time living and a lot less time analyzing that which changes nothing.

Follow your bliss... That's what's on my mind this morning...!

Blessings,

Vicki


Vicki Hinze

www.vickihinze.com