What Am I Learning

That I'm an idiot for believing I could predict what I would feel like writing about on any given day of the week. Wait a minute! Oh, sorry. Wrong blog. A Voice in the Wind allows venting today. Venting on The Great Sea takes place on Sunday. Today I am supposed to write what I'm learning - and not be moody about it.

I suppose it's like everything: be more specific with the question and I'll give you a better answer. My little italics beneath my scheduled topic (at blog's bottom) say What can I take from what I am doing. I guess that begs the question: What am I doing?

Not much. But right now it isn't about quantity, it's about quality. And maybe that's what I am learning.

Through the actions of others (and inaction of myself) I have become unemployed. For a variety of reasons (mostly resulting from personal decisions) this is still true. It has granted me the opportunity to draw near to a dream I have had for a very long time. It may even have made it possible for that dream to become true. What I have learned is that everything inside me is turning to this dream like sunflowers bending toward the sun. In the morning they face east. In the evening they face west. So it has become with me and my dream. I look to were it goes. Where it will take me. What is the dream? I want to be A Writer. I want that to be my occupation. That's what I want to do.

I suppose, technically, I could say that is what I am. When people come up to me and say,

So, Bevie. What are you doing now?

I can respond by saying,

Well, I'm a writer now. That's what I do.

It would be a wonderful conversation.

So, you're living your dream?

Yes. Yes, I am.

And then it would get all ruined when some jackass would say,

And how much do you make with this writing?

Pop! So much for the dream bubble.

It's what I want. It's the last dream from my youth with any chance/hope of fulfillment. The others all died. I killed them. I killed them all. Oh, I didn't plunge a knife into them, or blast them with a pistol. No, it was much more subtle than that. Slow poison. Over time. It was a very effective poison, too. It works every time, and there is only one antedote. The poison? Fear.

All of my life I have been afraid to achieve my dreams. I have allowed the doubts and disbeliefs of others to guide my steps. I have made myself obedient to the whims of others, hoping by doing so I would have their approval, and that, perhaps, that approval would successfully replace the satisfaction of having done something worthy of the talent I was given at birth. (Do you know who Jesus said was a worthless servant? The one who was afraid to use the talent which was given him. The unused talent was taken away and given to someone else - someone who would actually use it.) I do not know if the approval of others would be a good replacement. The reason being, I never got it.

So, what have I learned through what I am doing?

I have learned that it is exhilerating to pursue a dream.

I have learned it is terrifying to pursue a 'last dream'.

I have learned the antidote to fear is to try. Really try, like I really mean it and it can really happen.

I have learned that I do not write nearly so good as I thought, want, must.

I have learned there are people ahead of me on this Road to Peace and Personal Satisfaction.

I have learned these people can help me reach my dream.

I have learned these people are actually willing to help me reach my dream. (That is something new to me.)

I have learned that dreams are living organisms. (If fed and nurtured, they will reproduce.)

I have learned there is truth in the words: I'm not quite dead yet. (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

I have learned there is joy in trying.

What would I like to learn?

What it's like to actually achieve.

(Sorry. I don't think I actually vented, but I was moody. Sorry.)