Monday, November 10, 2008

Time for the semi-seasonal blog update

No point in even talking about how long it's been since I wrote here, so we'll just slide right past that and get right to why I'm writing. And it's because I haven't got anywhere else to write.

I've spent the better part of the night sitting in front of this computer. Because, for once, for a change, I didn't want to sit in front of the television and play video games. Admittedly, I didn't know exactly what it is that I wanted to do, but I knew it wasn't that. I knew I didn't want to be around people. I knew wanted to have a beer in my hand. All of these things, under ordinary circumstances, should have told me, "What you want to do is write." So I sat down here, in front of the computer, and I waited to start writing.

The fact that I avoided the actual writing for so long should have been a sign.

I read Digg. I read my gaming sites. I got distracted by a bunch of not-terribly-funny videos at College Humor. I read a couple of articles at the Onion AV Club. Eventually, I ran out of shit to read and thought, "Well, you think you want to write. So just fucking write, you retard."

So I opened up the new play I've been working on, and spent, I dunno, maybe an hour on it. Got some stuff out, but it wasn't...good. It was just...just there. Just words on a page. Just slogging forward. Getting shit done. But it wasn't...good.

When I bored of that, I still had the need to write, so I opened this thing I've been working on about my cat. My dead cat. My dead cat who was about 12 years old who I had to put down last month, and who -- in the putting down -- led me to realize for the first time in my life that there was no God. This is something that's been haunting me for awhile now. I mean, I haven't been a practicing Christian in more years than I can count, but there was always something in the back of my mind that clung to the idea of a creator, of someone out there who, even if he didn't love us unconditionally, would at least give us some place to hang out after we were dead, even if that place wasn't completely awesome.

But then when I put the cat down, it just went. That whole idea just vanished. Suddenly, God was the most ridiculous idea on the planet.

And the truth is, I'm not really sure how one thing even really led to the other, and that's part of why I've been trying to write this thing -- to make some sense of it. To figure out how a dead cat would lead me to conclude that there is no God. But I can't make sense of it. Tonight was no different. I spent some time with that, and it went nowhere good, so I closed that one down too. And then realized...that was it. I had nothing else to work on. And still, this burning desire to write something.

So I came here.

There's another play I could be working on right now, I guess. I want to have two one-acts done for next March, for submission as ACToberfest shows for next season. I want to have two done so there are options. So it's not just trying to push one through because it's the only one available. I want to have two so I can actually go with the best one, or the one that feels right, or whatever.

But this other play is about suicide and loneliness and isolation, and to be completely frank, I'm really not feeling depressed enough right now to properly work on it.

So again, I came here.

Writing about the act of not writing is one of the weirdest, most counter-productive things I can imagine. I'm also pretty sure, in this blog's long, storied history, it's something I've done once or twice in the past. Because when you have that burning need to write something, even writing about not writing is writing. In some horrible, twisted way. Even if it just leaves you wishing that you were doing something actually productive, instead of just wasting a few more bytes in cyberspace.

I'm not completely sure, but I think that the last time I time did any serious, substantial writing -- on the play, most likely -- was before we put the cat down. And I really think that's because, since then, since I've realized that God is a joke and a fantasy, that I'm profoundly changed.

As it should be, I guess. One doesn't go from being a semi-Christian to being an atheist without a few bumps along the way.

It feels like I need to re-evaluate my whole life. Like the things I do, and why I do them, will have to be different now. When I write, it will no longer be because i feel a need to share a gift I was lucky enough to receive from some creator. It will be because...well, I'm not entirely sure why, actually. Which is probably why I'm having so much trouble actually writing anything write now.

I feel like this revelation should have freed me. Like I should be able to do anything I want now, that I'm no longer forced to live up to a set of standards created by an imaginary father figure. I should be able to do anything. I should be able to be anything.

Instead, I only feel like I'm nothing at all.