My God, is that a mutant?!

It seemed like a catchy title, but as usual, you would have to try very hard to make it suit the subject matter.

Here's the thing about writing: there are a lot of different ways to go about doing the same thing. Even simple actions, like those of a waitress pouring coffee into a your mug at the diner, can be done with sufficient flair to transform them. Nuances make or break a moment, a conversation, a holiday meal with family.

Depending on the day, the hour, or the assignment, how I write and why I write can totally change. For instance, lately I have been writing a lot of poetry because it frames emotions easily, and poetry is like a bite-sized punch or like getting sprayed by a skunk: it's potent stuff. Earlier today, I really, really wanted to write so that I could organize all of the questions and possibilities that floated like surprisingly active pond scum on the surface of my mental swamp. Conversations about future retrospection do that to me.

The guts and the glory of the matter is that writing is an outlet. In the closed space of my mind, there are only two ways to air it out: the incoming vents and the outgoing vents. Writing is an outgoing vent, a way of letting some of the murky vapors escape from my inner chemistry experiments and pretentious mental pipe smoking. But the thing is, sometimes I need stuff to stay inside. Pressure can be painful, but it can also be a means of focus. All too often, when I write it out, I lose some of its significance and let it pass to the wayside, whereas when I'm too busy to scribble, I tend to keep chewing at the thought, desperate not to lose it until I can save its essence on paper. Weird, how, with the intention of saving an idea, I externalize it and thereby make it all the easier to forget.

Ideas should transform us. They should motivate us to action, focus our behaviors, and alter our interactions with others. But often it seems like the greatest work is done in silence, half-hidden away from our eyes. Who am I and where have I come from/am I going to? These are questions that I think I know the answers to until a glance back in time reminds me that my vision is so limited because I only look at the surface and never bother with the depths. And tangentially, just in case future me is reading over this post again, remember what I told you today: there are also many moments of joy, even if your head is too fogged up to find them.

So, two shots of espresso and an iced tea later, I'm not sure where this is going. My idea apparently did not come to a sharp point, but it has cleared the clouds from the horizon, so I think shall end by gazing upon a sunset and saying goodnight.