Sometimes We Have to Blow It Up

Dear Readers,

I did something unexpected recently. I changed jobs. There wasn’t an urgent need for the change. It wasn’t like the place I had been for nearly 6 years was closing up shop. In fact, it was safer to stay where I was, to stay with the familiar and keep to my lane. It was stress I knew, stress I was familiar with.

But I changed anyway. I accepted a new position at a different company in an area that I had some familiarity with but was by no means the expert. I leapt from an in-house marketing team to the agency life, transitioning from the security of having only one client to now juggling multiple clients, each with their own distinctive needs.

After day two at the new office, I found something that had been stolen from me was returned.

I wasn’t even aware it was stolen in the first place.

I don’t have a name for it. It’s not so much a physical object as it is a feeling. It feels like uncertainty and insecurity bonded to excitement and determination. It feels like the weight at the bottom of one’s stomach. It’s cold, but within that frost, there’s a churning furnace. 

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There’s a scene I love from Excalibur, a John Boorman-directed adaptation of Le Morte d'Arthur. In the movie, Sir Percival returns with the Holy Grail, offering it to a King Arthur who has lost all color, energy, and life. Once Arthur drinks, life returns to him. 

“I didn’t know how empty was my soul until it was filled,” Arthur says.

This scene speaks to me. Every so often, I feel myself caught in a web of my own complacency. Life gets comfortable. I get into a rhythm where I choose to do things that don’t nourish the soul, where I take the easy path of comfort instead of the risk of trying something new, putting myself out there, exploring an unknown establishment, town, or state, with my wife, or discomforting myself in some way for greater knowledge.

And I suffer for it. Like Arthur, I find myself fixed to a chair, eyes glazed over by the mind-numbing glow of a television set. I’m not meant for that, and I don’t think that’s just a me thing. It’s an “us” thing, us meaning people.

I feel that this is especially true for creative people, and I came across reinforcement of this idea in the form of an article by Grant Faulkner, the executive director of NaNoWriMo. Read his piece on “Divine Dissatisfaction”.

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At my new job, I have to lean more on my writing skills and think of ways to improve ecommerce sites for clients. It’s challenging, and being low-man on the pole means that I have to prove myself all over again. It’s a risk, one wherein I don’t know where I stand with regard to the agency, but there are more rewards that come with the risk. 

The greatest reward, however, is the one that I gave myself — I trusted myself with a new mountain to climb. That takes belief in one’s self and convincing of that quiet, doubting inner voice that I can handle it.

If you’re feeling stagnant, I hope that you find your Holy Grail this week. You are a creative person, and you deserve to share your creativity with the world. 

We’re all in this together,

Scott

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• Remember way back in April when I wrote about Batman and my admiration for Executive Producer Michael Uslan? I had a chance to interview him recently.

• I also interviewed psychologist and comic fan Dr. Travis Langley.

• Read my latest fiction piece “Night Sky”.

• On Twitter? Let’s follow each other.