I don’t know where my novel is going right now. Or, more accurately, I think I know where it’s going but I don’t know how to make my brain and hands and skills get it there. As a result, I’ve been tossing and turning with stress dreams, the latest of which suggested I should scrap a whole chunk of the story - what I spent last week writing. Argh! Should I give it up?
I don’t know.
Admonitions that come in dreams seem kind of squishy, the wisdoms of scripture or pop-culture notwithstanding. But I don’t much like not knowing which way to go. I’m uncomfortable in the unknowing - what lies ahead? How rough the road? Like most, I want some security against this uncertainty.
Because life is full of squishyness, it seems easier to nail down the details, secure the plans, button up the contracts - right?
Actually, some things should stay squishy.
Or, you know, nebulous.
I think a lot in terms of growing edges, those still forming parts of me where there’s opportunity to stretch. While possibly squishyish in actual fact, I like to think of them as more sharply, angularly lovely, like the live edges of natural wood.
Rough-edged may suggest painful, and I can’t deny that there’s a lot of pain in today’s uncertainties. In this season, I see plenty of people pulled into profound anxieties as the powerful disrupt jobs, safety, healthcare, future expectations, and even something as basic to human flourishing as a sense of belonging or welcome. How can there be any magic in this kind of sharp unknowing?
It seems clear that in the modern world, cycles of uncertainty repeat on shorter and shorter timelines. They’ve become more the new normal than any of us would choose. As much as we prefer confident clarity, life continues to center around what we don’t know or can’t count on. In the midst, it’s pretty human to feel stuck.
So, though it’s not quite my natural inclination to search for magic currency in what’s hazy, blurry, unknown, that’s what I’m doing today. Living, stretching, and finding the magical lens to see uncertainty as the price of growth.
Some of my stress relates to the fact that I gave myself some firm deadlines recently. Those end-date certainties made the present moment much fuzzier. Today’s choices may help me get done in time, or they may also prevent it (e.g. that week of work on the wrong scene). The learning process requires some trial and failure - but how much?
I don’t know. Still.
And I won’t, until I have the distance to see how new learning changes my edges, shaping them into a different kind of interesting, a different kind of possible, something new.
As squishy as the creative products of my daily work may be, much of the process is an exercise in agency, choice, freedom. Growth. It’s a privilege to spend time that way. So, as uncomfortable as I may find it, I’ll squint to see beauty and magic in today’s rough-edged creative survival. And I’ll wait to see how my unknowing frustrations help me transform as a creator and human.
May you find peace in your own squishy circumstances and comfort in the growth potential of your edges!
Beautifully said. I like the analogies you used. You left me thinking about my own deadlines and showing self compassion for them.