I wake up and while my body is stiff and slow, awkward and cumbersome, my mind is gazelle-like swift and agile. It’s not necessarily good, just rich with thoughts, ideas, and sophisticated language. It races from one thought to another though, so it is difficult for me to harness and develop any one thought into a creative masterpiece. It is great stuff I find flying all around me, but it evades me. These incredible lightening bugs of the mind are like a rock skipping over the smooth surface of a motionless lake. And diving for it later to find where it landed is always futile. This morning explosion of the mind feels like a gift has been given to me, then snatched away before I can claim it.
No, no, no. That is victim talk and I refuse to dance with the devil. Let me re-center my thinking and take a different perspective:
The gift is already mine; I just have to figure out how to open it.
Ah! I see, what I am really facing then is an opportunity to work through a lesson and master a skill…. Yes! And the lesson smacks me directly in the face bringing me to full conscious attention: it’s all about focus, self control, and discipline. Ugh. These things are threatening and nasty little irritants to my spirit that is ever lustfully passionate about its freedom. There is some logic that fuels the fear that if I genuinely focus on one inspiration, all the others will flitter away like milk weed seeds in an autumn breeze. I do indeed believe they will as they always have.
So I have to ask myself, what does it matter if 99 slip away so long as I capture one? The alternative is to capture none and that of course, sends me spiraling downward into defeat and despair, a place that is very similar to being stuck in a snow drift. No, no, not going there… then I have to consider capturing one inspiration and indulging in its potential!
Later in the day, when my mind is more dull to creativity and more sharp to practical conclusions, I will ask myself, how can I harness my mind?
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