Good Luck

I feel like the poor guy in front of the firing squad. I have been asked if I have anything I would like to say prior to the bandana being tied over my eyes. It is time. This is the hour. This is the finish line, a 365 day assault on complacency and decorum is now at an end. 

What began a year ago as a daily ritual of writing discipline, designed to push my somewhat obscure stream of consciousness journaling towards literary improvement, yet allowing for the transgressions associated with what is called do it fast first, has of course evolved into something completely different and even unexpected. It became fun. It became enjoyable. It became something I began to look forward to and even juggle my other chores and responsibilities around. This is something I find amazing. And tremendously satisfying. I can now, on demand, go back to any day of the now completed year, and take a critical look at what was going on inside my head and around me. 

This is the crossroads. I can hail my effort as a mission completed, call it a plan that contained a start, a middle and an end, and move onwards and upwards. Do something different like paint something every day. Maybe write 365 songs. How about doing an act of random kindness every day? Or, taking the exact opposite direction, head toward another level of what we have begun and try to improve it. I could go back every day and edit the existing. A chore I have never done, and, truth be known, have never wanted to do. 

At this juncture, having already been at the crossroads and offered a last cigarette, it is clear that there is both an opportunity and a calling here. The opportunity is to build. The calling is in my choice of mediums. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but is it my pen or my sword? It those tools are unavailable to me, or if my soul passionately calls for the camera or the Spanish guitar, who am I to disagree? It is like a dog looking at her shadow. 

Therefore I think it is in the structure. What am I capable of creating if I dedicate ONE HOUR of focused work per day to that process? Intriguing no? 

My final metaphor for the day and by proxy, the year, is this: The structure is the package without which one cannot put the creative gifts one holds for humankind to see. Or hear. Or feel. Or share. It is like (oops) having the goal of saving $3,650 in 2019 to buy say, a new Stratocaster. Here is how you do it: Practice scales and chord progressions every day for a year on your current axe. After every hour session place a ten dollar bill in your day-glow painted coffee can. 

On this day in 2019, reward yourself as you reward others with the poetic fruits of your labors. Sing that song!

No blindfold, through the crossroads, with structure, satisfied, rehearsed and ready to go shop. 

Good Luck.