Today I am distracted. Something has preoccupied me and slowed me down all day. On my way to the Starbucks after work, I thought about turning down the street towards home but then I remembered the word "discipline". That's what it's all about, right, doing something regardless of how you feel. It's a routine, something you train yourself to do again and again. Then one day it takes on a life of its own. It may not feel great or inspired, but the training continues. The work goes on. The creative muscles must be flexed and stretched and molded. The practice, the focus, the word searching, the cutting and pasting, it becomes a tonic and a structural support around which all else may fall away.
The Merriam -Webster Dictionary defines denial from a psychological point of view as “a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality”. I inhale, squint my eyes and hold my breath after reading this as if preparing for someone to rip a bandaid off of a wound. The definition just doesn’t capture the experience. Being in denial is like being under the influence of black magic. You are blind to the thing whatever the thing is. There is no conscious act of avoiding or denying anything. I denied leaving the wall heater on in the bathroom when questioned by my mom despite knowing full well that I had done just that. Certainly I was avoiding confrontation with my mother’s dismay, the truth of my absent mindedness and the fear that my misdeed would cause me to lose my mother’s affection but make no mistake about it. My denial was a lie. What I am talking about here, is quite another type of ...
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