Initiation Tool - create "Morning Pages", writing 3 pages longhand every morning (90 days straight)
Aug. 25, 2010 - "Morning Pages" - Day #15 - Miro Cafe, off Prince St. Stop, Manhattan
I've talked about taking a leap of faith, and I'm going to talk about it again...now...Taking a leap of faith is similar to taking a dump in a public bathroom - sometimes your life, or nature, just calls for it, maybe even demands it. Revelations can often come when visiting the Jon (John?), and I've joked before, but this ain't no joke (a good lyric) - I think if, say, I'm just pulling a name out of thin air, I probably have never mentioned this man before, I just happened to name my cat after him, say, um...Bob Dylan...say it was revealed he wrote most of his songs on the toilet then writers across the nation, probably world, would take their pens and pads into the lavatory, put on some Dylan, or Ray Lamontagne, like I did a couple days ago while writing on the toilet, toilet writing, sweeping Brooklyn!...people across the world would start writing on toilets, and think, "Boy, I really am so much like Dylan, or no, it's time I can call him Bob...because we're so much alike, we aren't?"...This joke, but non-joke, came from me mocking people that call themselves Dylanologists (ridiculous, it's not?), and that made me come up with the lyric I wrote in my song And Let the Blues, aka Footprintin' by the underground:
...And let me be patient, but not your patient
For I'm the one supposedly deliverin' the medicine
And let Kevin Bacon become the symbol - we are one - or don't
And let an overanalyzed artist's toilet become a monument
Or don't, if you want to be that way
And let a lyric be placed out of place
For a metaphor for what we've all felt before...
I digress, which I still don't know what that is, but I'm still pretty sure I just did it, amazing how we can not know what we're doing, but simultaneously be doing what we don't think we know, confusing - another life metaphor, and in case you find yourself confused when reading my writing, I will claim it was intentional and a metaphor for life...Life, the board game, another game I'd kick your cheeks in, I wouldn't? I have, and am, and will continue to...forever more...Writing can be this way, and in a way, every time somebody writes, they are taking a leap of faith. We will tie all of this, leaps of faith, Bob Dylan, writing...and toilets, together shortly...but first, peep this (really?)...yes, I really said/wrote that, so shut yo mouth...and peep...
...Leaps of faith, like writing, or starting to write, is so difficult for so many of us, but then people will take all kinds of drugs, feed themselves food that's essentially poison, yet can't take that leap of faith and put a damn pen to a pad. Seinfeld brought this up before in a way too, his example being how humans are so afraid of that date stamped on a milk carton. Humans will have unprotected sex, laugh about it the next day while watching ESPN Classics with Magic Johnson playing the Celtics in the NBA Finals, bleeding. But, when it comes to writing that cover letter for a job we really want, well, we torture ourselves, staring at the blank page like it's an impossible defense to score on...sports metaphors, you've gotta love them, you don't?...I've tortured myself for years, like I said, tip-toeing, not wanting to be noticed - so far, so successful. And the thing is, if you didn't know, most of the things we choose to do, like the food we eat, people we sleep with, etc. are leaps of faith that can so often hurt us. The others, the leaps of faith we choose not to do, like writing, or going for that job, going back to school, etc., are leaps of faith that more than likely would help us. We may not get that job, my writing may not get noticed, but I guess I've learned that while others, like me, are trying not to get noticed, others were trying to get noticed -- but then others were busy writing - and I mentioned to myself in a previous "Morning Pages" that writing has to be the most important thing...In my song (song, as if I actually sing) Resonate I wrote:
...I met a songwriter today
And he was giving off vibes of somebody that had something to say
I met a songwriter today
And for today, he uses his writing like others pray...
...Writing like others pray - a leap of faith...and this doesn't have to be religious faith, and believe me, it's not, it is?...I write this and try to conclude, dismount with plans to take leaps of faith. I guess a good way to plan future ones is to realize ones you've already taken. A very recent leap was wearing that purple, "The Black Dog", t-shirt, that was obviously religious though, it wasn't? Another that comes to mind is being friends with this dude, some call him Nate the Great (Nate the Pretty Good, Average, whatever). I met him in 3rd grade and we've been friends since. I think we're in like 22nd grade, 21st grade? now. They blend together once you graduate college, we're all in the same grade, and tell that to the prick over there with the expensive suit and sunglasses on during a cloudy/rainy day (tell him!)...Being friends with Nate this long has been constant faith-leaps. Possibly my greatest leap so far has been auditioning for stand-up comedy at The Laugh Factory, NYC, now I think it's Times Square Comedy, whatever...I opened with, "I think we all agree, yeah, I do...I think we all agree it's time Cindy Crawford gets rid of her mole"...I didn't get the gig, but there are no scars left, or any worse left than the ones that could be created from that outdated milk carton, or the scare left by your, "I don't even remember her name" story you tell your friends while watching Magic Johnson's press conference about him having HIV. No, the stand-up comedy leap of faith, although was during my worst stages of insomnia, I wasn't even nervous - for I wasn't even there (mentally), and I am only starting to comprehend that I actually did that...I had found the listing for auditions on Craigslist. I'm sure you could find many leaps of faith on there, leaving you with a "casual encounters" scar. The guy I called, I guess, a talent scout, asked where I had performed before. I told him it was my first time, not like "it's my first time" like that girl from the Girls Gone Wild commercial...Anyways, often first times, whether doing comedy, or whatever comes to your mind, is the toughest time. Like writing, it's that starting point - everything is a leap of faith. Much of life is a leap -- so here I am in this cafe, again, writing, and almost completing today's "Morning Pages"...I started today with a leap, taking a dump on a public toilet. I will end with writing, like so often, so poetically, by telling you to take your leaps. Try the public toilet idea, that's leap one, and may the rest of today, and your days, be fill with faith-leaps. Flush, metaphorically, that fear to begin something.
...
Later in the day I jotted down: Imagine years down the road, teaching writing...student says I haven't been published so why listen to me...I say that that's not the point, maybe a point, but not the point...draw points, connecting them to one point, the first being writing, and attach others, leaps and goals, to it...and I have been published...class dismissed.
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