I never seriously considered it before but I imagine that if I tried to describe every detail of a picture, I would need much more than a thousand words.  I do tend to be wordy, not only in writing but when I speak also.  My daughter, I say with pride, is a wonderful artist.  Unlike the pictures I draw which are not very evolved; she has the talent to bring a picture to life. 

This past weekend, I was writing a lot.  I didn’t really have a whole lot to say; I was exploring.  I had a concept in my mind, an idea, but no clear picture; I wrote about that.  Late that night, just before bed, I still was not satisfied that I had captured what I wanted to say with words.  So I doodled a bit; something I very rarely do given my limited drawing skills.  My daughter curious, bored, or heading to bed on her own, came into the bedroom and lay down beside me.  I felt a little explanation was needed, since she had now seen my admittedly poor artwork.  I tried to express to her what I wanted; I read her the words I’d written and spoke of a few extra details.  I told her, “I wish I could make pictures like you do”.  Then inspiration struck.  While I may not be very good with drawing, here was my daughter, right here by my side, interested in what I was doing; so I asked her a question.  I asked her to draw a picture.  I left the artsy details completely to her, I simply told her the elements that I needed in it to satisfy my needs.  She said to me, “Mom, I cannot draw that.  It’s all over the place.  There is too much in it and I don’t know how to bring it together.” 

What I did then was I pushed.  I didn’t physically touch her nor did I raise my voice; it wasn’t that kind of pushing.  I didn’t demand that she do the picture or try to make her feel guilty for not wanting to commit to it; after all, the picture was completely my idea.  I pushed her to just listen to me for a couple of minutes, so I could explain myself further.

I spoke to her of possibility.  Certainly she has demonstrated talent over the years; she was even accepted into a space-limited four year long, fine arts program, so the potential I saw in her was truly seen by others also.  I suggested that she had had many opportunities to draw all types of pictures over the years.  She had learned of technique, color, proportion, depth, and styles.  I was confident that she had all the knowledge and tools she needed to produce a picture; even if not mine.  I asked her to consider the possibility of trying to capture something elusive.  I surely didn’t have a clue as to how to draw motion.  I asked her to just think about it.  What kind of picture would she see, would she be able to produce, with the elements and limitations I had outlined.  I asked to think about her vision of it all.

As a result of our conversation, my daughter did begin to think and explore possibilities.  Perhaps she didn’t start out “committed” to the project; perhaps she was just sketching an idea; as I had done with my writing all day.  (I didn’t actually ask her that, I think I might later.)  I did not see her gather her tools, I was not aware of her thought process, though I imagine the idea of pleasing Mom might have been among them.  I do not know if she began in the middle of the page, or at the corners.  I do know that she started with a blank sheet of paper and an idea she was attempting to express.

I now sit here writing this, with a picture of questionable beauty proudly displayed on the wall to the left of me in my living room.   I would need far more than a thousand words to describe it.  It has every single element that I wanted in it.  I simply love it!  I think it is beautiful; a terrific piece of artwork that I know was born of love and possibility.  I’ve been trying to name it; her creation.  Perhaps that’s not for me to do.  To me, it represents wholeness, love, balance, awareness, and beauty.  In the broadest sense of the words, I suppose one might say it is a picture of our universe, for it is that too.  My daughter is not so impressed with the picture, at least that’s what she tells me.  She sees flaws in it.  She sees some of the items in it as not being entirely relevant.  She sees areas of her talent which she feels needs some fine tuning; at least, that is my view on the matter.

My daughter was able to do for me, something that I was unable to do for myself.  She brought my vision to life.  She painted the picture I was trying to create with words.  I suppose that her not thinking the picture is beautiful is a part of her journey, just as I always question the beauty of the words that I write.  I cannot say with any certainty whether she will pursue a career in the fine arts but I do know that because she is an artist; she is able to portray things in a way that some of us can only dream of.  Just as I cannot say I will have a successful career as a writer, I also know there are some stories that can only be told by me.

Questionable beauty; my writing is like that sometimes, I call it trying to capture a moment, with words.

I am more successful with my writing and my life right now.  The process of writing and creating has opened new doors for me.

I am clearer and more definite which is clarifying my writing purpose. 

I am open.  I am open to possibility, I am open to adventure, I am open to all things, and here comes the But (or the definition for me).  I am open to ideas that are positive, respectful, nurturing, and loving. 

I wrote previously about clutter.  I have been clearing the clutter from my house (actual cleaning – yes – ugh, but beauty); I am cleaning the clutter from my writing; I am cleaning the clutter from my body; I am letting go of those things that once had a purpose, but are no longer meeting my needs.  I am clearing clutter to create beauty.

I trust my instrument which is me, Ruth, the writer.  I have faith in me and faith in the world around me.  I am capable of writing well if I am clear of body, mind and soul or spirit.  These three are inter-connected in wholeness of well-being.

I wrote before about fear of posting here, of “publishing”, of contemplating the universe.  For me, publishing on the internet was a representation of trusting the universe to find the balance of it all.  I am finding the balance in my life, in all its aspects, which I believe contributes in some way to the balance of the universe.  I still have more questions than answers.  I am examining the details and the overall picture all at once.  I am finding ways to become accountable to myself, those I love, my writing, and the world at large.  I have discovered my nature as an individual and a writer.  I am doing my best with what I have.  I am content.

There are moments when I feel like I should be “committed”.  I have always run from those moments, until recently.  The term “commitment issues” has always frightened me.  That is as honest as I can be.  

I have feared commitment because I did not understand commitment.  I now have no need to look that word up in a dictionary.  I can trust my judgment, use my common sense, and know I am on the right path.  I have feared writing; not knowing what words might appear.  I have feared life, not knowing if I was prepared.  I have feared insanity, not knowing if I was sane.  I have feared death and I am alive.

I do not know all the answers; I just need to ask the right questions, of myself, to know what is inside of me.  I am committed to being alive.  I am a writer.  I am now committing to my writing.  I have many basic human needs and one of them is to write.  I was afraid to let it manifest; I am not sure why.  Then I realized, to be a writer is to be an instrument.  My body, my thoughts, my spirit all come together to make me.  I am the vessel.

Having determined this, I have made a decision to try to publish.  I may be successful, or I may not; time will tell.  I can face a fear to meet my needs.  That is who I am.  I believe that anything is possible.  I believe I am a writer.  I believe I can achieve this long-time, now committed goal.

I am now, once again, content.

What is the point of writing, if the title is pointless matters?  Pointless matters, is my way of exploring, it is a title that gives me permission to write aimlessly.  The reasons are unclear to me at the moment.  I confess I am currently feeling a little muddled.  I do know, however, that I did want to write all day.  I have spent my day, so far, trying to take care of things that I feel are significant.  I have had a nap because I am not physically feeling well today, I’ve cooked, cleaned, washed, and I’ve tried to meet my son’s needs.  I know this is important to me, and so I do it.  There are always reasons why I do things, even if I do not see the point in them.  I do the best I can with what I have at the moment.

I believe that is why it was so important to me to write this right now.  To just be in the moment.  As I was taking care of “things” today, I was writing in my head.  I was content that I was doing what needed to be done.  I was writing funny, clever things, I was amusing even to myself.  I was exploring pointless matters in my head and there was a point to them.  I’m not sure what it is right now, because at the moment, I am feeling very tired.  Not discontented exactly, but I seem to run out of steam.  Perhaps that is because I have been so busy in my mind lately.  Perhaps that is because my body is fighting off something.  Perhaps that’s because I am afraid of being content. 

I do know that I am afraid of many things.  Some of the things that frighten me are troubling because I cannot pinpoint why.  Other times, I am very aware, full of excitement and energy.  That is life, it is never still, if it were a flat-line it would be death, I think.  The thing is, I feel I have more questions then answers.  Just when I get it right, or think I may have it right, it changes.  Time changes.  If I do not write about pointless matters then I will not be able to find the points that do matter.

So what are pointless matters?  I’m not sure I know.  I do know that it seems to be the opposite of things that have a point. I do know that a point can be a message, or something like the tip of a sharp needle.  A focus point.  A thing that guides can guide me to the answer.  I have a personal theory I am experimenting with.  I keep asking myself why.  So far, doing this has been very enlightening, though at the moment, I’ve lost the purpose of it.  Matters are things that are important.  Matter can also be neurons, electrons, protons, organisms, I think, if I am recalling some of my science properly.  Without giving myself permission to explore pointless matters.  I would get hung up on the thoughts themselves.  I would right now be finding the proper definition of matter, from a dictionary, textbook, or encyclopedia.  Doing that would take me away from my writing.  I have previously determined that it is important for me to write.  Knowing that, believing that, is why I am exploring right now.

I have recently been playing word games with myself.  I have discovered a circular pattern in my thinking.  I was never aware it was there before.  There may be a reason for that.  I think of a circle as round.  Never-ending.  It reminds me of rings, wedding rings and marriage.  It reminds me of the song “the circle of life”.  I am alive.  Perhaps that is the point of this.  I still do not know.

I am distracted by my son.  Sometimes distractions are important.  They change our focus, which can point us in a new direction.  Is it important for me to spend time with my son, absolutely, and so I will, in just a few minutes.  That is not a life or death decision at the moment; he is fine, if not entirely content.  I will see what I can do to help him feel more content soon.  I am his mother that is what I do.  I try to help him as best as I can.  I also know that I cannot help him as well, if I am not content myself.  I feel content when I am writing.  I feel I am discovering important parts of myself through the process.  I cannot spend every moment of my day writing though because other things need to be done.  I am not sure that I prioritize well, but I am trying.  I know that I have obligations and commitments; I am trying to meet those also.

I think there may always be a point, even when we do not see it.  Sometimes, I know, it helps to ask why.  If I do not capture this moment, I will not be able to capture it, to discover the “why”.  Y is often represents an unknown quantity in math.  Math and science use formulas.  Formulas and math are explained in texts.  I know texts are a way of communicating knowledge.  I am always trying to gain knowledge.  I don’t know if I will gain any from this text, but that is the point in exploring.

My next challenge will be to actually post this.  I believe I can do that, since I’ve done it before.  The challenge for me is to not edit it, to avoid the temptation of fixing the words and the structure in an effort to make it more readable.  I know when I do so, my message gets skewed.  Having said that, I feel I need to just go with my gut on this and post it now before I give it further thought.  Otherwise, the moment will change, and the message might too.

P.S.  I am posting this without editing it. Bravo Ruth!

My name is Ruth, and to further introduce myself, I will (with hesitancy) say that I am a conflicted writer that has a history of taking common, everyday events, ideas, feelings, and words, and turning them into personal stumbling blocks.  Now that I’ve revealed that much, I feel this might be a good time to state why I am writing here in the first place.  I came across Wild Mind quite by accident and discovered it is valuable to me as a writing resource.  I am curious to learn more about blogs in general, since I’ve had little exposure to them, and I am intrigued specifically with Gloria’s blog concept as a whole.  For me, even the name Wild Mind is inspirational, full of exciting possibility; it resonates with me in a way that few things do, I can really identify with it because I am mystified with how the mind works, and consider my own mind to be quite chaotic and wild.  Add to that mix, my belief that writing is my passion, a component that is a principal building block in the architecture of “me”, and it is not surprising that Wild Mind feels like a familiar home to me, a place of comfort, an area where I might be a little more relaxed and let my guard down.
 
My life could be compared to a juggling act.  I juggle concepts, fears, questions, stresses, ideas, problems, thoughts, priorities, needs, goals, desires, experiences, writing, services, parenthood, livelihood, distractions, experiments, finances, approaches, diets, relationships, time, resources, anxiety, skills, circumstances, emotions, obligations, perceptions, tasks, frustrations, schedules, opportunities, and more; there is a distinct possibility that I might juggle as much as a person who could define himself a juggler.  Using this analogy, someone might conclude that I am an atrocious juggler and I need to find a new pursuit immediately, another person could find my perseverance admirable and therefore declare me a successful juggler, simply by virtue of the fact that I carry on, making a valiant effort even if the goal and results thus far may be vague, or the attempt itself appears futile.  After all is said and done, it basically comes down to personal philosophy and perception, and because I am still exploring my own understanding and beliefs in life, the unsettled chaos in my mind is constantly throwing me off-balance, which is not necessarily a desired circumstance when I am attempting to juggle (unless I believe that I only grow through my adversity, in which case I might view being off-balance as a ideal circumstance).   As a further demonstration of my convoluted mind, I will say that I am fretting right now that comparing my life to a juggling act is a not a good analogy.  I wonder if a reader might interpret “juggling act” as a phrase, being a complete concept in itself, or if it might also be interpreted as one two words, meaning there is a key word in the phrase.  If the key word is interpreted to be the action of “juggling” the reader may understand it in a very different way than if the key word is interpreted to be “act” which could be viewed as either an action, design, or a performance.  Words in the English language often have multiple meanings, and synonyms further add to the likelihood of miscommunication, so I find myself in a huge and ongoing struggle with the idea of using a word correctly or making a wise word choice.  I tend fret that I will not find the words that I need to accurately convey my message, which I then worry will cause me to over-explain my thoughts, and perhaps become redundant, repetitive, boring or difficult to understand and appreciate.
 
Gloria offered me this opportunity to contribute here as a writing experiment.  At the time I thought to myself, “Hey, I can do this!   I want to do this!  Of course I can write on a writing-related topic, because writing is an essential part of me, I have plenty of thoughts and feelings to share on the subject!”   But the key word for me is “experiment” because as a conflicted writer who constantly juggles ideas, which includes the concept of exploring my writing through experimentation; this was opportunity I could not resist.  Then I had a setback, or to be more succinct, I created an obstacle.  I enthusiastically said I want to contribute here, which is completely true, yet for me, writing is not just something that I want to do, writing is an act of expressing who I am, which is my purpose for writing about me right now.  As an individual and self-proclaimed writer, I cannot think of even one aspect of my life that I do not consider being relevant to writing.  My immediate problem now becomes selecting a writing-related topic for this first post, which I consider too broad a range to work with, and so I need to select a sub-topic that I feel I can write about.  A reader might think that since I have identified a goal that I am in fact, a step closer to reaching it, and hopefully, eventually, that will be true. 
 
Instead I find myself in yet another self-made quandary.  I am confronted with the confounding conundrum that I am as an individual, which is problematic for me in writing terms.  I have the impression that my mind is chaotic, which is in all honesty a great source of stress for me; paradoxically, I believe that referring to my mind as chaotic or wild, is a critical statement that is representative of some of the illogical and unjustifiable expectations I place upon myself.   Even as I deliberately choose these exact words, I am hypercritical, thinking that I may be inspiring the undesirable perception of writing drivel or of having a highfalutin pompous attitude.  Filled with self-doubt over my inability to follow some basic writing guidelines, like “less is more”, “show don’t tell”, and “be concise”, I again begin juggling.  I read and self-edit along the way, with a handy-dandy dictionary, a spell-checking tool (which I don’t always trust), and a magical phenomena many refer to as a thesaurus.  I am ambivalent about these writing tools, I feel an affinity to them and still I unrealistically expect them to create, when I know, intellectually, that they are only unchanging pokerfaced witnesses to my musings.  Again, I find myself lost in a sea of words like how and why, and I worry while I search for a raft to keep me afloat; then it comes to me, in the form of a memory.  I remind myself that words are only words until put into context, which is what I am actively striving to do.  Still in a quagmire of sludge trying to center my attention on getting myself out of this muck, there is now a shift in my focus.  This change forges a bridge where I am tempted to criticize myself for resting on my laurels as I contemplate the universe, which would not be an entirely inaccurate description.  However at this time I am still juggling; as I ponder a plan of action and seek insight about my own motivations and current perceptions, I take time to reflect knowing that if I am not actively being reflective, I cannot detect changes in my perception.  I need to be aware in order to conceive a purpose, and feeling debilitated by a lack of purpose, stops me in my tracks.
 
I see the proverbial light of recognition beginning to course its way through the density of the gray-matter in my unruly mind.  Due to the thickness this light needs to travel through, it must meander until it locates the floodgate valves which will allow it access to a permanent residence amid the mass.  
 
The evolution of writing this is also a personal journey.  I did not lack ambition, tools, experience, knowledge, resources, inspiration, perseverance, criticism, or conflict and still, nothing.  I could not reconcile my shortcomings with clichés, formulas, self-imposed deadlines, or analogies.  Being excited and enthused about writing here was not enough.  Word selection, context and sentiment, were not enough.  Even a self-professed desire and thirty-plus year’s worth of defining me as a writer could not tip the balancing scales for this Nike-wearing juggler with a “just do it” approach.  While many of these elements are found in some well-written or popular pieces of writing, there is an element that is essential to the formula that I understood intellectually but, until now, was unable to consciously apply to my writing; writing with purpose can be the revelation required that allows a writer put aside self-created obstacles in order to write.  This particular journey was fueled with aimless determination and passion and I hit several speed-bumps along the way, which I will lovingly refer to as works-in-progress but which are, in fact, about a dozen partially-written Word documents stored on my computer, and numerous notes, insights, and inspirations I have tucked away for later writing adventures.  As an experiment I would say that writing for Wild Mind is challenging and rewarding thus far and I am interested to see what may develop next from this initial conclusion.  My preconceived notion was that I might impose deadlines on myself, to post here once or twice a week; however the progress of this journey has taken much longer than I anticipated.  To arrive at this point in my trip, I have invested about two weeks of juggled time and six hours of actual sit-down-and-write time to achieve one post; I am reluctant to commit to a self-imposed writing deadline for a subsequent post, but am now determined to approach my next one with purpose.  As an evolving individual, this process has given me valuable data to consider and reflect upon to see how I might benefit from this experience in other areas of my life.  As a writer filled with conflict I am, at this moment, feeling more capable and better equipped to find the purpose in my next writing effort.  As an insecure human, I will quickly and proudly acknowledge this accomplishment.  As a ruthless self-critic I will beat myself over the head for taking this long to make it here; then in a moment of self-sympathy I will make amends and give compensation by conceding that I have earned some self-recognition for a success achieved in the company of conflict.  The self-doubt, anxiety, and guilt that tend to be constant journey companions to me, were forced to take a backseat when purpose provided a map, which turned into the metaphoric key allowing me to take the drivers wheel and steer myself toward this destination.   
 
There are numerous writing resources that can instruct and inspire and motivate; I consider Wild Mind an excellent one.  I formed this opinion based on two principles, the first one being that because it is internet-based it has inexhaustible growth potential and infinite links to other writers and resources, the second being that its broad concept is inclusive.
A writers’ life is oftentimes described as lonely, I am not convinced that description is accurate or typical, yet with a Wild Mind concept which is inclusive and inexhaustible, there becomes a number of options for a lonely writer that desires companionship during his journey. 
 
There is a famous quote by Napoleon Hill that goes like this: “Whatever the mind can Conceive and Believe it can Achieve”; I will refer to this as a CBA theory from now on.   I have been reflecting about this very quote during the entire two-week period it took me to write this so I am not surprised to see the theme it represents carrying over into my writing.  I am impressed with what Gloria has produced with Wild Mind blog, and I imagine this theme was evident in her creation.  My hectic writer’s mind allowed me to find the CBA theory relevant for me to write with purpose, which I construe as further evidence that a CBA theory is one that may become significant to me in all aspects of my life.  I needed to conceive a purpose in order to be able to believe that I could effectively communicate through writing, and believing that I could write effectively gave me the confidence I needed to be able to post here. 
 
Conceiving Purpose
Believing In Me
Achieving Results
 
I would not say there is no purpose for my juggling act because it does fuel my conflicted persona that allows me to recognize my mind as being chaotic and wild, but believing that I am a writer is my purpose for writing.