The screenwriter Brian Koppelman similarly talks about why, after many years of being afraid to, he finally ran down his dream of being a writer. “What I finally realized,” he said, “was that if I allowed these creative impulses to die, it would be like a real death, and like any form of death, it would be toxic and this toxicity would ooze out of me onto everyone and everything.”
Six at 6 on Sunday by Billy Oppenheimer
There comes a time when the years remaining in your life are less than what preceded them.
Just as there’s something strangely liberating about reaching an age where it would be logistically impossible to achieve some of the life goals you once dreamed about, the plain fact of the diminishing years in front of you can push you into a new decisiveness as a writer which can present a surprise ticket to creative freedom.
Tom Cox
A brief history
Ten years ago my Mum died. It still seems like yesterday. While the grief has dimmed, her last 36 hours remain etched in my mind. I was a few months off my 50th birthday.
The intervening years have flown by. The last decade has passed by in a blur.
My life changed out of all recognition.
I moved house twice. My Dad and I sold our respective houses and bought a house together. Later I would sell that and relocate to Derbyshire.
I started two new jobs.
I met my future husband out of the blue.
Two years after my Mum, my Dad also died.
At 54, I got married.
In 2020, we slotted into rural, village life.
Always a note maker
I discovered Obsidian, Second Brain, PKM (Personal Knowledge Management), and note taking in April 2021. I didn’t appreciate just how much notes could change your life.
I’d always journaled. Sitting in a café, a latte to hand, a favourite notebook and pen, was one of my favourite things. I loved being alone with my thoughts. Among people but not with them.
I wrote about difficult times. Loss, love, life. I ranted on the page. I remembered moments. It was inexpensive therapy.
Like Elisabeth Shue’s character, Dr Emma Russell, in ‘The Saint‘, I hid my notebook under the sofa. Unlike Russell’s notebook, mine didn’t contain the formula for cold fusion!
It did have plans, ideas, and theories. I was absorbed by the Hero’s Journey, I created an eBook about loss. I wrote blogs, I built myself websites.
In hindsight, it’s clear that I was writing. At the time, I saw myself as a hopeless dabbler.
Sowing the seeds
The roots of everything I’m into today began in those under the sofa notebooks.
Essence, the whole self, oneness. They started life in my notes.
And then I burned everything!
I was done with ideas that were going nowhere.
Even though I’d used tools like Evernote and Bear for years, my notes were standalone. I’d never heard of Zettelkasten back then. I hadn’t joined the dots.
Loving the tech
Obsidian changed that. It made complete sense but, most importantly, worked like my brain works.
Over the past two years, I’ve tested out different methodologies, various apps, watched videos about PKM, tried countless daily note layouts.
Note taking has made me more prolific. All those notes and ideas that languished on pages under my sofa now have a new life. They weren’t lost, they were still sloshing about in my head.
Today’s tech lets me shape my writing in ways that were inconceivable (for me anyway) a couple of decades ago.
As I approach my next big birthday, the urgency is unrelenting. Am I going to drift on the wave of a dream or am I going to steer my kayak?
Someone I know, who is slightly older than me said, a few years ago, that shifts happen as you approach your sixties. Maybe it’s that time ticking away. Perhaps we’re done with pussyfooting around. Or life’s experiences have provided learning.
Whatever the reason, I feel that urge to note aloud. Just me and my tech!
“Seize or savor. Fully immerse, or, fully disconnect. Never stall in the in-between. Either plunge into the digital world and trust yourself, or go find a lake and seep into your ancient mind. There’s no point in planning when you’re mid-catapult into the unknown. Just steer the kayak and take in the view.”
Michael Dean