Curiously, I find myself, feeling the feeling of boredom or restlessness.....That I can ever feel this way makes me curious, because I almost always have far too many things on my to-do list. I mean with a virtual laundry list of things to take care of; interests I'm pursuing; interests I'd like to be pursuing--how could I possibly have a moment of boredom? I think, then, about what has followed that feeling in my life in the past; what purpose could this ennui possibly serve in my life? I actually think that, for me, boredom leads to the birth of an idea, a project, an action that would never have happened without the painful boredom-feeling that kicked me in the back-side and forced me out of my comfort zone.
I can go through a period of time when I can identify a feeling of restlessness/boredom. But, it's tough to hang in there during a fallow period. I mean, we don't know that we're about to have a breakthrough: finally get into that "Practicing French"group; finally take that class we've been thinking of every time we get the mailer on Hypnotherapy; pull out those paints and brush and just start playing with them again; take some risks and meet some new people; learn how to do the Argentinian Tango; Do some volunteering on a cause that we find important.
I remember when I was a young mom, reading all the Isaac Bashevis Singer books I could get my hands on. One day, when I had this very feeling of ennui--kids off at school, then-husband at work-I had this inspiration: Why don't I write Isaac Bashevis Singer a letter? So, I sat down at my kitchen table and typed one out on my Sears Manual Typewriter (those antiquated machines where if you made a mistake you had to use "whiteout"to erase it, then backspace and type it over again.) In an impulse, I included my telephone number and that letter led to my meeting the Nobel Prize Winner and meeting him led to my being invited back and being invited back led to my writing a story about our meeting and writing a story led to it's being published in the New York Times and publishing that story led to many different opportunities for me.
It's like when I told my friend, "God opens one door and closes the other." And she replied: "Yeah, well what do you do while you're waiting in the hall?" That's the feeling I think I have when I am feeling like something is lacking in my life, but I don't yet know what it is. It's not something that's got a direction yet; it's just a vague feeling. Yet, if I look back, within hours, days, or even weeks, that feeling is followed by an action that relieves that feeling.
Almost everything I've accomplished: going back to school in my forties; doing a radio show; working at public television; writing some essays and articles; and accomplishing the things that I had to accomplish to have things to write about--all of these things came out of just that kind of feeling: A kind of an itchy, vague feeling of "something's missing---what could it be?"
For me, this feeling, which I absolutely despise while I'm having it, is almost always followed by a burst of energy and ideas. While I'm in it, of course, I have no idea (despite past experiences) that it will result in an action that may very well change the rest of my life. It's a lot like a birthing process: first the pain, then (oh, right, this is why I was having the pain!)---the baby.
I call it the "cup getting empty" or "hollowing out" phase. Very rough but absolutely essential for the creative process. I think this is why a lot of creative people fall into chemical dependencies, they are trying to avoid the hollowness. But you NEED the hollowness. If my brain doesn't feel trapped, then I won't fight so hard to break out of the cage.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post!