Out of Time

I would not have guessed, when I began teaching Fearless Writing, that the most common problem my students would face was time. To be precise, finding time to write, a subject about which I have written often in this space. I would not have guessed it would be such a problem because I had never considered it a problem in my own writing life. Since boyhood I had always set aside plenty of time to write. No problem. Like most teachers, I teach what I most want to learn, and I think my students and I are not so very different in our concerns about time. It is one thing to set aside two hours a day to write; it is another thing to spend those two hours productively. And by productively, I don’t mean pounding out a certain number of words or pages; I mean entering into that dreamlike flow where I forget about everything but the story I’m telling, where I am receiving more than making, listening more than thinking.

If I am in that state of mind, I really don’t care if I produce 400 words or 4,000 words. I don’t care where what I’ve written will be published or what anyone will think of it. When I’m in that flow, all I care about is being in that flow. There is no better feeling than focusing on something completely, without any judgment or expectation, without any thought of what I have done or might do. There is no better feeling than living the in present moment.

Which is why time remains the single biggest obstruction to my creativity and productivity. Not the lack of time, simply the awareness of it. When I enter into the creative flow, I forget about the past and the future. I forget about guilt, which exists entirely in the past, and I forget about worry, which waits entirely in the future. Moreover, without the past or the future, there is no time, there is only an endless now.

I am reticent to even write the words “endless now,” as that concept is so elusive it appears not to even exist. It is easier for the imagination to picture the past or future than the present moment. In fact, my imagination cannot picture the present moment. It can, however, enter it, and when it does, it is released from the burden of correcting what is unreal and freed to create what is real.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual and group coaching.