There's a word I haven't used in a while…'boink'. As of thirty seconds ago, I thought the word was used to describe an athlete that had run into 'the wall'. Seriously, I did not know, until the aforementioned thirty seconds, that the official definition of boink is that it's a simile for fuck.
Phuck me!
Man, I hate when that happens. And I'll confess it happens often enough. Get all know-it-all, pontificating on everything from the planet Jupiter to plate tectonics. I'll point to a tree and call it Jacaranda, only to learn years later the real name of the species is African Sumac. I'll speak authoritatively on a subject, in my own mind convinced that I'm conversant with said subject—only to experience the embarrassment of being authoritatively contradicted.
I'm not trying to deceive anyone!
In my pea brain there is the usual pile of beliefs and, in my sixties, I've come to accept that some portion of those, large or small, are completely and totally false.
That's the consequence of being a know-it-all.
Anyway, boink is the perfect example of my currently semi-operational neocortex.
So, I'll revert to the long-standing description of an athlete who's exceeded their capabilities at a given moment in time: I've hit the wall (HTW).
Right? You've heard the phrase before, perhaps used in a different context. One can HTW cramming for an exam. You might HTW emotionally in a fraught relationship.
For me, hitting the wall is when I can't get ANYTHING done. That's a far cry from boinking! (At my age, boinking is an accomplishment! That goes in the win column.)
See, I can't even stick to the subject! Perhaps the word boink has possessed my mind. Maybe it's triggered some kind of nascent transformation of my brain. I've never been one for a one-track mind, but perhaps boink has disabled or destroyed all the other tracks in my brain.
Plus…mouthing the word boink is fun! Try saying it a couple times, just for S's&G's. Isn't that fun?
Really, this…languid stage…correlates with the pandemic, so I don't have to look far to find company in my misery. Still, I would think that awareness would lead to some kind of resolution. I mean, I'm a problem solver, I've got skills.
But.
I just can't figure it out.
There are resources. There's a nifty little book called "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. The author offers small doses of wisdom, wrapped up in the suggestion that we look at our paralysis as though it is a monster. He gives the monster a name: Resistance. Then provides a framework through which to address the monster, practical ideas mixed with stealthy cheerleading and conceptual considerations.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like doing anything! Well, I mean anything creative. I can get out on my bicycle and get some exercise. I can meditate and try to settle myself down on the Essential Moment. I have an array of rituals that sustain at least a tiny sliver of propulsion. Just not in what I regard as most important activity in my mundane life.
I gots to get my first book published! And get ready for book two, which is already written. And finish revising another one, no, two. And I tried launching the draft of book five a couple months back—you guessed it: I hit the wall. I think I may have hit multiple walls. It feels like it. I mean, mentally I have a vague sensation of bumping up against the wall in May, coming to a halt, but with legs and feet still operational. It wasn't a catastrophic collision, just a little bump.
The thing is…as the legs kept moving and the feet kept stepping, I found myself penetrating the surface of the wall and going deeper into it. So now I look like the back side of some bad bas relief. Seriously, I feel like my intrusion has me immobilized, everything except the legs and feet, which don't show any indication of stopping. Maybe that's how I get out of this. Stop. Put myself in reverse. Back out slowly, watching for children and pets. Don't want to run over anybody.
I've considered the funky alternative to the wall, via George Clinton, and the thing being too wide, too high, too low to get around at the beginning of "One Nation Under a Groove". (https://youtu.be/3WOZwwRH6XU). No bueno. Music in general has failed to lift me out of the malaise.
I won't even admit to having the image of Han Solo in carbonite haunt me day in and day out.
Where does it end? The pandemic isn't going to let up for a while, months, years! Possibly. I can't live with myself being so derelict for that long. I guess I'm just going to have to adjust. Dig deep into that bag of Jedi Mind Tricks.
Because I’m tellin' ya…I'm dyin'. On the vine. The prolonged deprivation of creativity, wallowing in the lack of discipline, allowing myself to get lost in the trees when I couldn't see the forest…
It's all just a great big hairy bummer (GBHB). Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
