Lately I have been in a slump. I get inspired to write in the early hours of dawn, sit down and type furiously, believing that I'm creating something beautiful. Only the next day when I re-read my handiwork all I see are typos, illogical gibberish, and arguments that don't matter as much in the daylight as they did at night. Today I spent a few hours looking at old blogs and essays from high school and I hated everything I saw. I went to flickr.com to upload some new pictures, only to find with one click hundreds of photographers around the world with talent far surpassing mine. Part of me suspects that no matter what I say here, or upload, or shout from the rooftops...it will make little impact on the world, if any at all. And I suppose that thought is sobering.
So what am I doing, anyway? Why take the pictures? Why write the words? My photography and my writing are my passions. Personal, small, and unique to me. My pictures show the world through my eyes--and maybe I'm not sure what that's worth, but if someone sees one and gains joy from it I suppose I can call that success.
My writing is something else. It's more of me than I ever really share in person. And it's less. I say things here when I need to vent. Or cry. Or celebrate. I write about people I love and people I loathe. I write to remember someone, to thank them for years of generous living and to tell them what they mean to me. I write to forget someone, to sort out all my feelings for them and leave them somewhere behind in that giant file labelled "To Make Peace With Someday." I write to make myself bigger in so many ways, and yet sometimes, like today, all I feel is smaller.
Self-doubt is a common enough theme in art, and I think Simon and Garfunkel sing it best in their song "Homeward Bound":
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me
Homeward bound...I wish I were homeward bound...
Wish I knew what the future held. And if these drops really accumulate to much water in the end...
