There are days when being a writer feels like a soul calling, and then there are others that suggest I enjoy poverty and draw it to myself with my desire to string words together. Should I desire to change this sour puss attitude, I’m finding that there are plenty of people out there who want to help me manifest my dream of turning my writing into a movie. There are people who have drawn the universe in by the hips and have given it a good rogering rather than allowing the opposite. Gabrielle Bernstein recently held an online lecture called Meaning is the New Money, and I like that idea. The problem is I can’t pay daycare with meaning. I can’t pay the mortgage with meaning. In her book Spirit Junkie: Self-Love and Miracles suggests that if you’re saying, “I’m not happy,” you’re in the right place. It’s your thoughts that are creating your perceived reality. I am poor as a mo fo.
It goes on to say that fear is created by the ego. Okay. Fearing my finances will always be shit is my reality. Let me see, what does it say in my recipe book about making shinola from shit. Oh, yes…here it is:
“…drawn the universe in and given it a good rogering.” Excellent! Really wonderful! “To roger” is a long-neglected, underutilized verb. And nowhere is it given more hilarious expression than in John Barth’s THE SOTWEED FACTOR, a great novel about the hapless adventures of the would-be English poet Ebenezer Cooke trying to navigate life in colonial America, where he is newly arrived to take possession of a tobacco farm he’s inherited.
On another note–your thougthts do create your reality, but as a Zen teacher of mine once observed, you are so much more than your thoughts. It is possible to put a little distance between oneself and the demon that preys on so many writers and other artists.
You have no idea how many Zen practitioners I have drawn to myself of late. The art of detachment is one that is not so easy, and I feel I’m shedding Karma like a dog blowing his coat.
Good, good. Keep shedding.