I have seen the elephant in the world’s living room.  It’s so enormous, I want to do everything but look at it.

Like writing this post, right now, I’m getting very sleepy.

Oh right, that’s normal.

Feeling overwhelmed and afraid is normal.

2

The elephant in the living room is the state of the world.

But quick, look away.  It’s like looking at the sun; it might blind you.

3

As a kid, I was furious with love. I would go around insisting the whole world just needed to stop what it was doing, and make things right.

I kept thinking we just needed a global holiday. Stop everything we normally did and devote ourselves to saving the world, cleaning up or healing whatever was right in front of us.

And after, like a week or so, we’d have the whole world all sorted out and cleaned up.

I mean, there are as many of us are there are problems so if we each worked for a whole week, things would have to get a whole lot better.

4

I didn’t really look away from the elephant, I have, in many ways, devoted my life to changing the world by serving women.

But, as tends to happen at a certain juncture in our lives, the kid in me is back. She keeps tugging on my sleeve, pointing to the elephant.

She won’t leave me alone.

5

She wants to know – why can’t we all put down what we are doing, and directly work to help the elephant?

She keeps going on about direct help. Not indirect or after the fact but direct.

She keeps talking about us being the leaders, the creative voices who must use our energy and intelligence to directly affect change, now. That what is missing for many of us is connecting to this big purpose, having the courage to connect to something this big. It terrifies us but it also is what we are craving.

I remind her ranting never does much but make people exhausted.

6

I also remind her the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

7

She gets the last word.

Think about this Joe Campbell quote. The difference between a s/hero and a celebrity is “one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society.”  (We can talk about the word redeem later.)

Related posts:

1. The Secret of Fearless Living
2. Return to the Land of the Living
3. Me Over the Bar and Can Art Save the World?

Thanks for listening -  love to hear what you think. Support helps at times like these.

Links:

Four Years. Go.

And some fancy pants science guys take a river digital sabbatical – hysterical. Bigger picture on the same idea – Fresh Air story.

Gwen Bell took a digital sabbatical, too and wrote so beautifully about it – start here.

My post on how I structured my time off.

What the hell are Conditions of Enoughness?

Related posts:

1. How to Take a Digital Sabbatical
2. Productive Terror
3. Rachel’s Challenge

Me hanging out being with myself, listening, following my own process closely and then a thought:

Do people think this digital sabbatical is going to produce something?

Some brilliant new thing? Is my editor reading these posts and thinking a book proposal is (finally) on its way?

Heart pounding.

Then I laughed (weakly) and I remembered: This time is not about producing.

Repeat after me: this time is not about producing.

It is about being staying with my creative process.

It is not about deciding a subject or directing things or pulling the trigger, saying, “Yes, this is it.”

It is about listening to the voices that say, “You can’t” and saying back to them, “”You were created for someone far less creative and strong and resourceful than me.”

It is not about knowing.

It is about mindfully shedding old bits of identities and diving past the habit of leaving myself.

It is about bringing my attention back to my conditions of enoughness, again and again.

It is about burrowing all the way to the root of my desires and staying right there with them, right there, eyes open.

The image that comes to mind is from 30 years ago. I am diving in a North Florida river, peering under a bank, watching a spring bubble away.

30 years later, I still get excited remembering watching that spring, half hidden, one of hundreds that created the river. It was like watching a secret happen.

It feels like that’s what I’m doing now, internally, quietly.

Or, as I wrote today,

Your head has nothing more to say.

I do not know that this listening and watching and following will produce anything – at all. Ever.  And that no longer matters to me.

Which is very good news indeed.

Related posts:

1. Only Write Now
2. Artfest Day 3
3. You are Creative – Doh.

You are ready. This time, you mean it. For real.

You are ready. You are shedding, dismantling, unbuckling, discarding: identities, accolades, glories, web stats, even your most treasured bio.

Impressive, glittery, sacred: past.

Scars, wounds, failures, shames, dents: they must go, too.

You unbuckle the past slowly, swearing to yourself, softly, repeatedly, “I am ready, I can do this” even as bits of you cling to your fingers.

Disrobe, unwind, unburden.

A pile of you forms on the shore of your future.

The water of the unknown laps at your feet, caresses your toes. So clean, so promising. You are almost naked, almost emptied, almost ready.

Then a thought: wouldn’t it be a good idea to hold on to just one wafer thin bit of you?

After all, like the Egyptian Pharaohs, you will need things on the other side. Maybe not 10,000 nubile slaves or a clay jar with your preserved heart in it but it shouldn’t hurt to take just one, or maybe five, of your degrees with you? Certainly the Oprah appearance would be useful. And being the youngest person in your organization to ever run a division, don’t leave that. And your divorce and bad investments and the semi-abusive relationship - you aren’t really ready to let go of those.

It would be silly to leave all of you. You might get cold. You take back more slivers of your identity from the pile. You worked so hard for them. Especially the stories that gouge and pinch and humiliate.

You put a few bits of you back on.  Now you’re ready to dive in, the water looks so fine.

What’s this? You can’t swim. You can’t even float. You are sinking.

Your toes touch the soft, silted bottom. You panic, claw at the water but no matter.  You don’t move, can’t move: sunk.

You know what you have to do. If you are honest, it is only because you will drown that you do so, but to your credit, you do it (many would rather drown).  You cast away all of who you have been, these last most special and hurtful flecks, remembering, at the last moment to say thank you.

Thank you for it all.”

You find — you have no idea how — you can breathe underwater now. (Maybe it was the thank you?)  You can’t see very far in front of you, only a few feet, so you move slowly, as if in a dream. Come to think of it, maybe this is a dream and, any moment, you will wake up. You will be who you are, or were, or always thought you should be. You fantasize about how good that will feel, the known!, and then, shit!

You are smack, stuck, back on the bottom, in the gloom. Unable to move, although thankfully, still, able to breathe.

You sigh and watch the bubbles streak upwards. It seems that holding on to anything here does not serve.

You concentrate on the feeling of the water passing over your skin, on the cerulean blue patch right in front of you, on the rise and fall of your chest.

You take a tentative breaststroke forward. And then another.

Related posts:

1. Not Quite Daily Dollop
2. The Heart of New Desire
3. Making myself Feel Better

But giving in to our dragons – that is truly selfish.

Listening to them, believing them? There is no time left, dear people, no time.

As one of my stupendous Comfort Cafe members – sheros said about my last blog post (we sometimes discuss my blog posts in more private in-depth ways on the CC forums):

Speaking as just one person whose life has been forever changed as a result of your work, I WANT you to live this desire because I believe it will help me make  my OWN difference in the world.

I also know, speaking just for myself, that if I knew that the world needed my work like this – it would motivate me to get my work out there.

I read this and sat up straighter.

What would happen if you knew the world needed your work?

What would you do today?

What would I do?

How can we convince each other we already do know?

And if we can’t convince each other, how can we take action anyway?’

P.S.

Being called to listen to and live a big desire always sounds so very lofty and noble.

Actually doing it?

Doesn’t feel very lofty. Nor noble. It feels more sweaty. This is like building a rock wall, or framing a house or getting into shape. It’s hard. It’s slow. It’s manual.

It’s messy.

How much can I love the mess, keep turning away from the siren song of perfectionism, and into the mess of the unknown?

All the while believing the world needs this work and yet not getting attached to some big lofty oh my aren’t I hot shit!

So glad I can leave my rock wall building right now and go to my accountant now. That gives you an idea of how hard this is – I’m excited to visit my accountant.

Sheesh.

Links: When the Heart Waits, James Hollis;

Related posts:

1. Get Your Fear Basics Here
2. Comfort During Fearful Times: Fear of Creating
3. Comfort During Fearful Times: Fear Reflects How Much You Care