scribblings from an idealistic dreamer: A different side to writing...

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A different side to writing...

I am not confident to begin with. At all. I didn’t even used to let myself think about being a writer. But now I did it. I let myself hope. Now I’m doubting and redoubting myself over that. I realized just how much I want to be a writer and can only see how much I am not one.

Today I heard again about how important it is to love words. And now I am at a place where I question my motives. Even if I was able to convince myself that I loved language, loved stringing word after word after word together forming sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters, and books, even then, would I really actually love it or would I have just talked myself into it, would I just be acting? Playing out a life that is not my own?

I already feel like such an impostor. I don’t tell that many people that I want to be a writer–and I do want it, more badly than I can ever hope to say–because I am so crippled by a fear of failing. Of being discovered. Found out. Uncovered. Thrown out. I don’t belong. I never will. It’s just a question of how long it will take others to discover the same thing. And this process could become severely more complicated if I succeed in fooling myself along the way. How can I continue? Is there any way to become what I dream of even though I am not that person now?

One of my friends brought up a really interesting point. He said he thought that there were two approaches to writing. One is to string words together to form ideas and the other is to have ideas and to wrap words around those ideas. This makes perfect sense to me! Instead of loving words I love ideas. Stringing thoughts together to form ideas to form concepts to form plots to form stories to form books. And I try wrap some words around all of those. Then I go back and reevaluate and rewrap the words in order to be truer to the ideas. Then set it down and come back later and reread it to see if I was able to clearly communicate my thoughts and if not, try to work more with the words–the tools–so that it is clearly communicated. It is a different approach, I admit, but I would argue that it is not one to be immediately discounted.

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Things I'd like to do:

build a cob house
pick up kitesurfing
Do a 10-day juice reboot
learn to windsurf
learn to surf
buy a stand up paddle board
take a several week bicycle trip
learn how to ride a motercylce
work as crew on a Maine windjammer for a summer
complete an Ironman triathlon
learn to fly a plane
be an emergency relief worker
get a german shepherd puppy
walk across the country
design a house that actually gets built
go to Hawaii
live outdoors
write a book
become a vegan chef
live overseas for a year- at least
refurbish a mansion and open it for everyone to live in peacefully together
make a difference.

Things I have done:

became a lifeguard- spring '08
shaved my head in solidarity with those with cancer- 9-4-10
got Vibram Five Fingers- Dec. '10
went vegan- Jan. '11
paddleboarded to the breakwall and back standing up the whole time w/o falling in- 7-16-11
did a four day juice reboot- Oct. '11 (and a seven day one in spring '12)
became an EMT-Basic- Dec. '11
Ate a raw vegan diet- Dec. '12
became a paramedic- Dec. '12
finished a sprint triathlon- July '13
became a firefighter- Nov. '13
passed the firefighter agility test in under 4:30 (4:23!)- Feb.16 '14

Why Vegan?

I've been vegan since January of 2011 and I've gotten several questions about why I chose to pursue that, so I thought I'd try to answer them here.

To begin with, the idea of meat being, well, meat has always bothered me. Ever since I was two and first figured out where meat came from, I have been vegetarian on and off. (Yes, age two... I have always been a bit strong-willed when I make up my mind about something!) That first vegetarian stint lasted about three months, but then I was won over by a Burger King hamburger. And so began my dichotomy between liking the smell and taste of meat and being repulsed by the thought of where my dinner came from (especially after working with cadavers as a pre-med student... we look pretty similar to that stuff in the meat isle, guys!). But the times of vegetarianism became generally shorter as I trained myself not to think as much about where the food was from and also learned to avoid certain textures and presentations (like when they serve an animal whole, and it just keeps staring at you from the plate?? Yeah, makings for a vegetarian meal there!).

As many of you know, I am very interested in the sport of triathlon and particularly in the Ironman distance. As I read about several different Ironman triathletes, I kept noticing a common theme popping up: they were vegan. Now this is not to say that all triathletes are vegan- they're not. But for some reason, without me purposely searching them out, I kept coming across those that were.

So, my curiosity being piqued, I decided to do a bit of a personal experiment. For the month of December 2010, I gave up milk. I even still ate cheese, just stayed away from the milk you drink. And the weirdest thing happened. Before that, my ears always itched (like the inner ear canal that joins to your throat). I thought it was allergy related, but I figured it was all my other allergies (grass, trees, dust, mold, etc.). But when I stopped drinking milk, my ears stopped itching! That in and of itself, made me think that being vegan might be something worth pursuing more.

In January of 2011, I went full vegan. That jump was way too fast for what my body could handle well and now I recommend people make the transition much more gradually. For about the first two months, I had HORRIBLE stomach pain. Usually I would be fine walking into the cafeteria (I was in college at the time), but by the time I walked out I would be nearly doubled over in pain and the only thing I could do would be to go back to the dorm and curl up in a fetal position on my bed for about an hour and a half and then I'd be okay again. It doesn't have to be like that! Learn from my mistake!

Now that I am adjusted to being vegan, though, I really do feel a lot better. And as I've continued to read and research the vegan diet, I've just become more and more convinced that it is the healthiest fuel we can give our bodies.

So there you go! I'm vegetarian for my personal conscience and vegan for health reasons.

Hope that helps answer some of your questions! :)

Pages- Some of you have asked to see some of the older prayers/songs that I wrote (arr. by year)

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

A different side to writing...

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