What Holds Me Back?

It's the daily shuffle. The dual monitors and non-descript commenting on stranger's photographs that stands in front of my motivation like a small Tophatted-Monkey with cymbals. I wonder what Emerson's life was like without an iPhone buzzing calendar reminders; without the buzzing of nearby highways.

Noise. Perhaps it all boils down to noise.

My cravings for more are intense. I mutter time and again how I yearn for the chance to write. To one day write a novel of my own and share them with the world. But then, we all make excuses- or perhaps it's just me.

If I wanted to write--really write. I would sit down and do it. Perhaps we all just want to run away from our lives. Start anew. Move somewhere with mountains and fields of wild flowers. We all know there is more out there, outside of our small and confined worlds. Our busy lives consume us whole, licking their fingers of the sweet and sour sauce that remains.

We sit dazed in our cubicals, staring at our empty staplers and wonder why we just can't get out. What happened to our childhood dreams?

Someone once told me that our creativity dies somwhere around the age of ten. We are taught--wittled down with extreme scrutiny-- to believe that the only way to succeed in life is to follow the rules:

1. Step in line.

2. Be quiet.

3. Do as you are told.

4. Repeat.

We measure success by the amount of dollars we hold in our pockets our bank accounts, rather than the joy in our hearts.

But maybe that's too cheesy right now. Don't get too emotional- we wouldn't want that. After all, we are taught to be strong, confident, and sexy. Be appealing.

1. Work out.

2. Do your hair.

3. Buy nice clothes.

I wonder again, if Emerson had to live by all of these expectations. Perhaps the walls were smaller; perhaps they were more open. I picture him sitting on a rock in the middle of a wooded pasture. I picture himself, as I was at about eight years old-- a notebook in my hand, observing our natural world.

We might take it for granted. No. We do. We take for granted the sun rises. The shade from a tree. The sounds of the birds cawing, peeping, squeaking, squaking. We take for granted the soothing sound of the ocean waves, or the endless flow of a riverbed. We take for granted our air, water, the warmth of the sun, the lushness of the grass after a good, long, rain.

It's all around us, and yet it's so subtle. In truth, it's subsidiary to the technology around us. Our need to be in control. Our fear of not being communicated to and connected. But the truth that we all fail to see, is that being "connected" is what leaves us unplugged.

We have plugged into our cellphones, and out of the world around us, and in turn, we cannot understand why we seem to have this overwhelming looming feeling of saddness and disconnect. The answer is clear- we have to rewind. We have to unplug, disconnect from our control, and take a walk in the world around us- or what is left of it.

Perhaps then, we may find the peace we are looking for, and be able to finally sit down... and write.