Something Special

My goal for the immediate future is to try and separate -- partially -- the sense of completion from the act of writing. Too often I find I'm focused on the act of accomplishment, rather than simply writing for writing's sake or for the enjoyment of writing. I feel this is making me a poorer writer, which is perhaps another problem to resolve, but it is something I'd like to correct nonetheless. 

I'm not certain what drives us to finish something. Is it attached to a sense of perfection? Is this a learned behavior? Or are we simply trying to keep ourselves from going insane from trying to remember everything we are working upon? This might better explain squirrels. Some researchers suspect they might be keeping the world full of nut-bearing trees by their habit of burying and forgetting many of them before they become saplings. 

If only stories, fragments, notes, left on their own would somehow become something else. Maybe I should take up gardening and let nature do more of the work. Instead I'm here toying with my sanity in an attempt to make collections of words and punctuation grow into some sort of narrative. 

Of course the impediment here is me. It is only the standards I create for myself that I need to overcome. Maybe then what is happening when we don't complete something is a sign that we are unsure what we want. We know it is unsatisfying or going in the wrong direction. Instead of the satisfying, engaging story, we have something that has turned out ugly or messy or is just failing to hold our attention: a challenge too great, or too little.

In a sense we are creating weeds. No one grows them intentionally because they grow too easily. We need more of a challenge, something we can be proud to share. It is likewise with a story. We can create a story with a beginning middle and an end with some characters, but why? We need to show someone else but also ourselves that we are spending our time wisely. 

That's probably the reason we abandon so many starts, why we don't pick up our notes. We are looking for something that will be worthwhile and not take off on its own nor fail to develop. A story that both challenges and works with us -- a joint effort -- which grows into something wonderful.