Tag Archives: writing

Leap, and the Net Will Appear

22 May

There’s a quote from the 19th Century naturalist and essayist John Burroughs that I’ve been giving more credence to: Leap, and the net will appear. In other words, learn to take bold action by accepting a leap of faith. This is something I’ve always had a problem with when I sit down to write. I acknowledge that the action of writing something new has been hampered by my own hesitation. The ideas for new stories and essays never stop coming, they’re always demanding to be expressed, and yet the hesitation persists. The most common excuses that I have for this hesitation come down to some fundamental questions: Am I doing the right thing? Shouldn’t I be more focused on the pursuit of getting and holding down a job? What are the consequences if I fail at my task and can’t get an article or story published?

These are certainly valid concerns, and in the past, I paid much more attention to them then than I do now. What I’ve realized is that because I let myself become boxed in by my own fears, even when I’m working toward the “right” action of becoming employed, I’m not allowing myself to take more risks that would enable me to achieve greater results. The irony is that by not taking those risks and neglecting my gifts as a writer, I’ve probably ignored the very skillsets that would allow me to become more financially solvent. And to use those skills, I need to acknowledge my fear and focus on writing those stories.

Ray Bradbury has a quote that exemplifies this call to action: “Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” In other words, don’t plan, just do. Don’t wait for the safety net but allow yourself the opportunity to make mistakes and create your own solutions, even and especially if you’re in freefall. This can be a terrifying prospect for most writers, yet the very act of writing is a leap of faith that you’ll create something that will resonate with another person.

So yes, I still feel moments of hesitation when I sit down to write. Or I want to create a perfect first draft, which I know is a horrible way to come at any new writing project. It’s only now in the past few years that I’ve realized how my perfectionism has been a huge impediment to getting any work done. Thus, for the time being, my motto will be, “Leap, and the net will appear.” Maybe I won’t create the exact product or story I want, but it won’t be for a lack of trying. And maybe I’ll create something truly spectacular in the end that I never expected.  

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Living with Reinforced Helplessness

15 May

How do you create a safe space for yourself when all you feel is a sense of doom?

One of the things I faced most often when I was younger was a sense of reinforced helplessness as I dealt with people who couldn’t understand me because of my speech impediment. As a person who grew up with an extremely rare congenital neurological disorder known as Moebius syndrome, I’d be teased, ignored, and underestimated by people as they assumed my garbled speech and facial paralysis amounted to nothing more than stupidity. This in turn reinforced my own fears of being inadequate, which continued for many years even into adulthood. After all, if people are questioning your speech, how do you know that you will ever be heard? And even if you do speak up, will you be respected for doing so?

These days it feels like we’re all experiencing a sense of reinforced helplessness as we watch our government go from bad to worse to the bottom of the barrel under the leadership of President Trump. Last month, I spoke to one of my Toastmasters clubs about how recent events had caused me to freeze up in my writing for several weeks after the leader of the free world stated, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” This was part of his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz where he called for the “complete demolition” of Iran’s infrastructure if his deadline was not met.

Hearing the leader of the free world state that he would be responsible for the destruction of an entire society is a truly heinous thing to witness. There is no simile, metaphor, or hyperbole that can encompass how awful this statement was. It should have been enough to remove President Trump from office. Instead, nothing happened. No one was held accountable, and despite many more people speaking up and protesting, seemingly no one was heard. My fear went beyond worrying about whether this government would become the next Nazi Germany because in my own mind this has already happened. My fear was that we were past the point of no return where America could take a step back from its own self-destructive behavior and realize that we were so far down the rabbit hole that it would take generations for our country to recover from the rampant destruction of our civil rights.

In my speech to my club, I mentioned three things that we could do to help remind ourselves that we are neither helpless nor alone: Think globally, act locally; recognize that you are not responsible for the actions of other people; and use your freedom of speech to demand your rights, even if it’s “only” at the voting booth. All these things are true. And yet, I recognize that despite using all these tools, for many of us, those methods aren’t working. The people running our government have basically stated, we will not hear you. Sit down and shut up.

My answer to that was simple, and I would issue the following reply: If they tell you not to speak, speak anyway. Our voices matter. Our citizens matter. And although some people may not like hearing what you have to say, you have the power as issued by the Constitution of the United States of America to exercise your freedom of speech. No one should feel as though they’re living in an unsafe space, particularly when so many of our rights are being trampled by people who wish to return us back to the Jim Crow laws, McCarthyism, or worse.

Reinforced helplessness only works when you believe you have nothing to gain by speaking up or walking away from the situation. When that situation becomes untenable, you have the right to say, “Enough.” You can create your own safe space as well as help others create theirs. And no one should ever feel that their voice shouldn’t be heard.

If they tell you not to speak, speak anyway. Your voice matters. And so does your vote.

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“Fallen Lion” Anniversary

6 May

I wrote this poem over twenty-four years ago when I was still attending the University of Oregon and finishing up my English degree. I regularly studied at the Erb Memorial Union, and on more than a few occasions I saw homeless people come into the lounge to find a place to sleep. This one man in particular struck me as being handsome but very unkempt with long, dark hair framing his face. I don’t believe I ever had a chance to talk to him, but he became the inspiration for this poem. I hope you enjoy it.

“Fallen Lion”

The man has a lion’s face – broad and strong-looking,

with a mane of dark brown hair framing the rest.

A real lion would be cleaner, however.

The whiskers grow almost out of control, no longer beautiful,

not even savage, just pathetically limp and dark, lifeless.

The mane of hair is also dirty.  And he smells –

not like the rich, natural scent of veldt on sandpaper hide,

but the sick odor of the wounded animal who is too ill to care

for itself for long.

The man slinks along when he walks, but it is a graceless

movement, a half-shamble, half-lurching sort of slink

that a cat might make if it had three feet.

The man has two; for a two-legged cat, perhaps mortally wounded,

he does it quite well.

His arms, if they are not carrying a bottle or bag,

hang limply at his sides, loose appendages

that sway almost without rhythm save for his movement,

graceless.

Occasionally the man will growl, and others

who may not have noticed him there before

will stop and listen, uncomprehending, or if they do,

they turn away, unheeding.

Have they never seen a hungry animal before?

Of course they have.

But this one has two legs.  And begs.  And begs again.

Like a dog.  Not like a lion, who knows what to look for.

And gets it.

                                                                                    David Eric Freedman

                                                                                    March 10, 1992

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Reliability vs. Fame

19 Mar

I’ve been a performer my entire life, and I’ll acknowledge that one of the things I really wanted when I was younger was to be famous. I couldn’t really articulate those reasons no matter how hard I tried; it was simply a case of the grass is greener on the other side.

On the other hand, having been born with Moebius syndrome, I knew that finding work as a performer would be quite challenging given that my bilateral facial paralysis might be off-putting to producers or casting directors. I suppose in a way this helped to ground me, for at least I knew my limitations and was wise enough to realize that being famous wasn’t a guarantee, no matter how hard I worked in the field I loved. I certainly knew that finding employment in show business as a person with a disability would be a daunting task in and of itself, and for a while I simply didn’t look for work at all.

Thankfully, I learned a couple of valuable lessons in high school. First, if I tried seeking popularity, I wouldn’t get very far. However, if I focused on nurturing those interests that I loved, I would receive recognition for them simply because I wanted to succeed in those areas rather than worry about people’s opinions of me. Another lesson that I took away from high school is that the popular kids aren’t always the happiest. Maintaining one’s standing in the social hierarchy of high school isn’t easy, particularly taking into account peer pressure and the desire to fit in. Now think about fame as being the ultimate expression of belonging to the “in” clique, with many more perks but twice as many hangups. Your privacy disappears, people’s judgments can directly impact your popularity, and you won’t always know who your friends are.

For myself, I prefer to be reliable rather than famous. Being reliable in this instance means being punctual, polite, and prepared to work. I often find this to be a better alternative to being popular simply because this is well within the framework of what I can relate to. I can’t always control what people think of me, but I can certainly control my reactions to their behavior. And if I’m working on activities that I enjoy or can contribute to other people’s projects in a meaningful manner, that far outstrips anything I might acquire if I were famous. I’d rather be that person who people always come to because they know they can count on me for having a strong work ethic than be the “it” guy. Frankly, most people who are in the spotlight can have their careers taken away at any time simply by being replaced by the next up-and-comer. It’s harder to be replaced when you’re the expert the other experts rely on.

I think Clint Eastwood said it best: “Chasing fame is like chasing ashes blown by the wind; it neither ignites a fire nor stays put.” When push comes to shove, fame is notoriously unreliable. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee steady work, and it can dry up very quickly. I’d rather focus on being a solid member of my community who can be counted on to show up in all the right ways where it counts the most.

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Breaking Barriers

17 Jun

The Portland Gay Men’s Chorus will be performing its ICONS concert this Saturday, June 21, at 7 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. In our performance we will be showcasing several different storytellers depicting different aspects of our lives in the LGBTQ+ community. While my piece wasn’t chosen, I decided to share what I wrote here as an example of what you might see during our concert. In the section entitled “Breaking Barriers,” we were asked to tell the audience about a time we “broke through” in some way such as an achievement, transformational conversation, or just a monumental event relevant to our LGBTQ+ experience. My answer to that question is below.

Long before I’d learned the word “intersectionality,” I was very much aware that I lived in several distinct communities. Unfortunately, I also knew that I’d likely be facing various levels of prejudice simply by belonging to them.

I was born with an extremely rare neurological disorder known as Moebius syndrome which left my face bilaterally paralyzed. Because so few people knew what Moebius syndrome was, I was subjected to a great deal of bullying and misunderstandings from people who thought that I was mentally impaired. Even though I had a strong support system at home, I still suffered from crippling self-doubt and fear about how others perceived me.

When I came out of the closet at the age of fourteen in 1983, I was already aware that being out at that time was incredibly risky. Although I came out of the closet to my mothers and some close family friends, because of my prior experience of being bullied, I had no desire to face even more prejudice against me and didn’t tell many other people at first. As a result, my coming out process was a slow one, which ultimately culminated with me joining the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus in 1992 and becoming almost completely out of the closet in the process.

About two years after joining PGMC, while driving home with my stepmother, I turned to her and said, “You know, I’ve counted five ways that people could be potentially prejudiced against me. I’m gay, disabled, Jewish, short, and left-handed.” My stepmother thought about this, then turned to me and said, “Well, yes, that’s true that people might discriminate against you. But what would happen if you looked at all of these things as gifts?”

That thought floored me. I’d learned to accept the various pieces of myself over the years, but many times they’d felt like obstacles to be overcome. Not once had I ever felt that these components of my life were gifts. I don’t remember the rest of that conversation. I only knew that my self-perception had been upended by a very timely insight.

Today, many years after that conversation, I now understand what my stepmother meant, and it taught me an important lesson: Sometimes, for you to best see yourself, it takes an act of compassion from another person for you to best recognize your gifts.

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Knowing When to Say No

20 Mar

At last, it’s come to this. I have so many video games at home, both physical copies as well as from the various libraries on my systems (Playstation Plus, Nintendo Online, and Game Pass) that I’ve decided to drastically cut down how much I spend on this hobby. I’d already reduced my budget for video games anyway for various reasons, but now that I have a huge backlog, I’m much more likely to simply finish up what’s there. In addition, any “new” games that I want to get can be downloaded from those libraries, meaning that I’ll only spend money on the games I want once every few months.

I’m actually overjoyed with this decision since it’s been obvious for a while that there’s no conceivable way to finish every game in my collection for at least a year unless I have more time freed up. Additionally, with the job hunting, finishing the test for my medical billing and coding certification, and other activities keeping me busy, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. So yes, having more money available due to less spending on my hobbies isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’m implementing a similar strategy on buying more books as my library has grown substantially, but my book space is at capacity. There’s only one book that I’m currently looking at buying, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, and it’s big enough that I’d have to clear out more space than I have now. Knowing when to say no to buying more things has been an essential lesson I’ve learned while being unemployed. I’m committed to being more frugal than ever for the next year, even when I eventually obtain a new job.

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