New, All Over Again

I haven't written because I've been waning.

And you'd better believe, when I'm waning, I'm whining, if I'm writing at all. And thus, I thought I'd spare myself the sight of myself being so sloppy and dire. I'm in partial recovery now, but I warn you, I'm not symptom-free.

After all these years, you might wonder why I haven't found some way to avoid the seasons of mope. Similarly, you might wonder why, after all these years, humans haven't found some way to make it constantly daylight all over Earth. 

Well, it's because shit doesn't work that way. Shit is a force of nature. The moon slips into shadow, and lunacy dims. Then, there comes a period of sanity - dismal, doubtful, shining, stark sanity - a cool, porcelain sanity – a sanity that, it never fails, I fear may never break.

Yes, each time, I wonder if I'll write again. And yes, similarly, each night, I wonder if the sun will rise again. So, okay, fine. Clearly, everybody's got some flaws in their understanding of the solar system. But, according to a thing I heard this one time, the skies are like clockwork; they  keep doing the same things, over and over, for better or worse, and my creative cycle is basically like that.

When the moon is in shadow, it's easy to see things like a sane person would. 

It's easy to see that my arbitrary deadlines are arbitrary.

It's easy to see that I have no real audience waiting for my writing.

It's easy to see that this whole expedition is a tactical disaster, that it's time to cut my losses and save what little is salvageable.

It's easy to see that this writing-and-movies bullshit snake-oil-show has been an embarrassing waste of the only lifetime I'm likely to receive.

It's easy to go out to dinner, it's easy to sit in bed and read, it's easy to watch a movie on streaming, it's easy to drive somewhere I've never been, it's easy to play a game on my phone, it's easy to enjoy TV on DVD, to walk the dog, to clean the kitchen.

When the moon is in shadow, it's hard to find the urgency I felt when I was an idiot child.

It's hard to imagine myself like I once imagined I would become, as the head of a production team, as the master of a creative machine, as an award-winner, as a trend setter, as someone to study and admire.

It's hard to dream stupid dreams and be unashamed of them.

It's hard to keep doing what I've done a thousand, thousand, thousand times before, and still continue expecting different results.

When the moon is in shadow, it's hard to be crazy enough to do all this.

I suspect that everyone who struggles to prove themselves needs a healthy dose of lunacy.

How can a comedian, or a musician, or an actor, how can anyone, face a half-empty, disinterested house, and still perform?

They need madness.

How can a writer lay awake in bed, or sit alone at the keyboard, struggling to find a better idea, struggling to find a better phrase, struggling to make a better scene, when no one will read it or see it performed?

The only answer readily available - is madness.

I suspect that everyone who struggles to prove themselves wishes, in some small corner of their heart, that they were mad. If they were mad, they too could believe six impossible things before breakfast, even when the moon is tediously failing to be as full as it should.

And now I'm thinking -

Isn't it interesting, when the moon is called new, it's so very new - that it's not there at all?