Pure Potentiality

How long does it take you from the moment you open your eyes until you start thinking about the lists? You know, the list of things you have to do. The list of things you need to do. The list of things you want to do. It usually goes in that order. Everything is on a list, and no matter how you try, it seems, you can never get to everything on the list you want to do supremely: The wants list. That is why people have bucket lists. They do not want to give up on the things they really want to do before the next big adventure begins on the other side. I wonder if there are lists there too?

I am trying not to be held captive to the lists. It isn't something that I succeed at all the time. Often I catch myself succumbing to the well-entrenched habit. Things are much easier learned, than un-learned. I keep trying to un-learn it, though, because I think it is key to living the dream. If I can learn to live off the list, to take things as they come, to not judge the circumstances that I find constricting,  but find the gift in them instead, then I will be happier, healthier, and free. And I feel it is in that state that I feel the greatest joys of creativity can be reached.

As an author, there are many things I place on lists. Writing should be on the top, but sometimes the list pushes it down below other things. Marketing. Editing. Social Networking. Blogging. All things I love to do. And if I focus on the list, I find myself criticizing myself for not succeeding in all of these each day. 'You've neglected your blog, Mr. Eric", my mind chirps in. "Other authors get all of that marketing in, why can't you, Mr. Eric?" "When's the last time you really focused on that WIP for more than thirty minutes at a time, Mr. Eric?" The list can drag you down.

It is when I take my eyes off of the lists, and take all of the joys I have in what I feel called to do as they come, that I feel creatively free. Each moment has pure potentiality. Every second can be a brand new creative birthing. Each interruption to my writing process can be an inspirational adventure, one that can lead to deeper musings and around corners I may have overlooked if I stuck strictly to the list. The list may always be there. But I don't have to follow its whip lashings at my back. Taking a step back to see the pure potentiality in each moment I am given allows me to appreciate all the more the joy it is to create.

I would love your thoughts on this, my quaylings! How do you get away from your lists? Do you find a quiet place to reflect? Do you find solace in nature? Do you try to be nonjudgmental when your writing process is interrupted by the joys of life? They are joys you know.  Each moment can be joyous and full of pure potentiality, if you so choose to see it that way.

Dreamwalking Wednesday- What's a Quay?

Quay. It has been my nickname since high school. It is short for Quazar and abbreviated QZ. I call my children and the fans of my writing "my quaylings." So, what is a Quay? What does it mean to be a quayling? And why is it so important for you to know? Let me tell you my story...

Believe it or don't, I used to be painfully shy. I missed being voted the quietest in my grade by only three votes. (Ronnie Frost, you win!) I was also one of the shortest kids in my grade. It was only when Wayne Jackson moved to town that I became just the quiet kid and not the short, quiet kid who liked to draw and daydream and was easy to pick on. That's where the story starts.

In grade school I was picked on because I was short. I got called "Shrimp" a lot by the grade school bullies. I was the shortest kid, and my best friend at the time was, well, fat. And he stuttered. We were prime targets for getting picked on. We were the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid's of bullydom. I never had a better friend than Roy though throughout grade school. His dad made us wooden swords and shields and we played together after school every day. Playing with swords. More fodder for the bully cannon.

When I was in junior high, the grade school bullies had turned older, but I was still a prime target. I would get teased and picked on in the hallways daily. One day I had had enough, and I just blurted out something to shock them and get them off my back. Little did I know that what I uttered then would change my life. I said "I am an alien from the planet Quazar and I like to sit upside down in my chair at home and think about my home planet out there in space." Something like that. well, it worked. Sort of. They now thought I was too weird to pick on. But they began calling me Quazar. Another name to insult me with. But at least the physical bullying stopped.

In high school the name still followed me, but I met some great friends. I wrote about them in my last post, "The Magic of Friendship." They shortened the name to QZ, and called me Quay. "Hey, Quay!" They would shout down the hallway at me. When I would leave I began saying 'Stay the Quay Way!" What had begun as an insult had become something I was proud of, something I embraced. I was Quay, and I had friends, and they helped me accept myself and let me be the fun loving, daydreaming, quirky person I always was but was afraid to show it. What started out as something meant to harm me had become something good.

A quay is a wharf. It is a place for the loading and unloading of ships.

A quasar is an interstellar object that emits immense amounts of energy and light.

I am Quay. I am a bundle of creative energy and imaginative light that loads up dream magic and unloads it on anyone and everyone who will listen.

The Quay Way is the way of staying forever young-mind, body, and spirit.

How do you stay forever young? And what moment in your life did you find the dream magic that changed you forever? Have you found it?

I hope you do.

Stay the Quay Way, my quaylings. Always.

~Quay~