Selah // Something Witty

Now my heart's no longer mine.

Date: 01.14.17 -- Day Four
Music: "Strange" / Charlotte OC

Some say procrastination is a result of high anxiety, perfectionism, and a fear of rejection. If this could be a dictionary entry, my face would be plastered right next to it because this is me in a nutshell. I'm often have low-key anxiety with a perfectionist streak that goes for miles with no right to actually demand perfection. Like, none at all, but alas. It's a weird kind of perfection where it's small, inconsequential things that are amiss that bother me more than huge holes of mess. You'd think the huge holes of mess would be more of an issue.

For example, in the movie Ninja Assassin (a guilty pleasure) there's a scene where the protagonist is sent on his first mission to assassinate. He stabs his target in four of his major arteries, but this guy fights tooth and nail before his head is finally smashed into a toilet and dies of the hit. Here's the thing: the first cut through the first artery should have been the fatal cut. Each cut after that was definitely the fatal cut. With adrenaline and the thrill of the fight in his vein, he heart was pumping pretty fast, so the blood loss would be extensive and lethal within a matter of seconds, dead in under a minute. But nope, because that's not Hollywood cool. That bothers me, sure. It would definitely bother all the doctors and nurses in my family. But that wasn't the killjoy moment. That moment came later, as the ninja clan was running on roofs across the city of Berlin. Their outfits are black. Ninjas don't actually wear black. They wear dark blue because black doesn't really mask them during night raids, but provide noticeable voids that people detect. This principle is also why camouflage is designed the way it is instead of in one solid color. Thus, my perfectionism went off by this little mistake and I had to take five from the movie to get over it. Yep, I'm that person. This mistake is also why this film will never be perfect in my eyes, thus a guilty pleasure.

So I brushed over lightly about my anxiety, highlighted my weird perfectionism, so let me dive deep into my fear of rejection. This particular fear is probably the reason why I haven't finished a problem in ages, if ever. I have this dream in my head that I would like to be a cottage witch somewhere, where the ocean meets the mountain and a thicket of ancient trees. But along with spells and quilts, I would be give people their personalized book. Essentially making me a book writer and book dealer. People would come to me with their novel needs, and I could always find what they where looking for, and if I couldn't find their need, I would write it for them. That's one of my favorite dreams about potential me. But that me doesn't exist at the moment. What resides there instead is the fear that everyone will hate what I'm writing. That the thing I wrote will not be understood. Or that I have offended someone in particular with my writing. This fear of rejection has stifled me for years, possibly my entire life. It might be the thing that causes me to stop writing altogether.

So I dedicate to myself that I will not be chained by my own demons out of fear and self-loathing. This year I'm going to finish writing a novel. I'll have some time in spring to work on a story. I mean realistically I could start now, and I might, but I want to keep planning and outlining as it has helped me in the past. Maybe, you, presumed viewer, might have thoughts on what I should writing. Any help to finish writing a thing would be greatly appreciated. So drop me a line. Should I run with an idea I've vaguely plotted out or start absolutely from scratch?