1 year ago

momentum

And how you define the time you’re in

I’ve been Talking a lot about the stumbling blocks
Or the things that interfere
With our visions and our dreams

But what about the momentum you accumulate after days of accumulating victory over the forces of resistance and procrastination

That morning cup of coffee
The caffeine spike when the writing is almost done

That feeling you have after a long run
Or gone to the gym
Or played a show
Or painted something you’re proud of

Let’s talk about what it is to overcome the battle
That always comes with any attempts at progress

In other words let’s talk about momentum

To push the ball further down field to the end zone of our dreams
That’s what it’s all about

And the end zone need not be winning the Pulitzer
Or filling a table with Grammys
Or getting a diamond YouTube button
Or whatever the benchmark of ultimate success is for you

The end zone is really
Making it to the place where you’ve
Defeated resistance
And seen through the tactics of the lunatic called oppression or the self limiting beliefs
The forces of oppression employ in the battle

Momentum helps us see through the oppression
Enough to where we can easily overcome it
And have us set up habitual patterns
Towards working
Without having to question it really at all
That’s the place we are aiming for
Stacking days of flow so that they become a matter of course

The habit of work
The gratitude of momentum
Pushing and pushing and pushing
And not being uptight about it or forgetting to have fun
But pushing anyway.

That’s the real end zone
Which quickly becomes the beginning zone
As new creative ideas spider web out of your opening mind

The battle in your mind for the fulfillment of a vision
Isn’t only for that vision

But a kind of muscle you are building in the gymnasium of the soul

Where one vision becomes two and two becomes four and then you end up with a serious body of work. Having overcome so many limitations in the cultivation of your souls garden

So that you escape the fate of being like most men who go into their grave with their song unsung

As Thoreau famously said
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation going to their grave with their song still in them.

To get that song out of you required a lot which is why most men never do
The pitfalls to singing it are many.

We won’t ever kill the forces working against us
But the more we beat them in battle the easier and easier it gets to recognize their booby traps
And shenanigans
And dirty tricks
And dive right into the landscape of an opening vision

And it’s not rooted in external success
Or a reward someone is going to hand you
But rather
In
A surrendering to the process
And the habit of finding that process daily.

In putting the work first
In making it fun
In trying
But not trying too hard
But also not not trying enough

It’s a priority
To wake up
And write first thing
Or whatever the nature of your creative vision happens to be
We must point are days in that direction
For the distractions are endless and always available

Speed is often brought up as a factor towards success
I believe because speed cultivates momentum
And momentum cultivates speed
Like a spinning wheel
We must make the wheels of our dreams spin and keep them moving
And speed over rides over thinking and the dangers that come with procrastination and fear.

Arriving finally and hopefully at an
ease of purpose
Or momentum of gratitude

And I guess ease of purpose
Is when you aren’t debating your objectives anymore
Or internal objections.
You arent spending hours and days trying to sell your own dream to yourself before you allow yourself to reach for it

You become the one reaching for it
And you keep at it long enough to where
That battle becomes seemingly out of reach to the dark forces of resistance or oppression and procrastination

At least for windows of time

Or at least a safe distance for as long as you lean into the momentum of gratitude
Of arriving at this place

Gratitude for overcoming the hurdles that allowed you to discover this space

You could think of it like a prison break

You’ve broken free
And run from the prison
At first alarms were going off and the barking dogs were chasing you
But luckily you hopped on a boxcar train
Of habit and created momentum
It took you far away from the old cages
And so now you’re not in immediate danger of being captured by the forces of oppression
But they’re still out there looking for you
You have to remain vigilant
But you’ve gotten out of the prison clothes
And changed your identity a bit
And now you are operating as creatively free man or woman
Leaning into your vision

It’s at this stage when the forces of oppression change form
And you realize that perhaps their influence and destructive energies
Were put there to make you stronger
From the area where you’ve overcome and graduated
Beyond their initial attack
New worlds of creative expansion open up for us

Rather than insurmountable monsters of oppression
The gifts of overcoming their attacks
Convert them into drill sergeants of the soul
Or cosmic personal trainers of your dreams

Because from the place of overcoming
And breaking free
New worlds of confidence in your ability to creatively expand beyond old self imposed limitations
Become much easier to see and believe in

And you are operating from momentum now
You are busy being born rather than busy dying as Bob Dylan says

You can Bully the bullies now

When the voices of oppression emerge
They become easy to see through and laugh at

Rather than terrifying you
You can chuckle in their direction
And simply say
Awe isn’t that cute

We shouldn’t get too cocky
Because life will always throw surprises and stumbling blocks
But we should take note of these times of flow when we are in them and remember how we got here
we should recognize these moments of momentum
And lean into them
Be grateful for them
And stack up more wins
When the wind is at our back.