Book Project Update
Our most purposeful acts may be the most racking
As many of you know by now, I’m writing a book. At this point, I’ve found that the book is more or less writing me. It’s an excruciating thing, to be honest. I often question why I have embarked on such an unforgiving task. But it’s also the element of my life that makes the most sense at the moment.
I’m asking myself, “Jaden, why are you talking about writing your book and not working on your book?” I may be procrastinating through this writing, but it also seems important for me to share my process with you.
This book is the biggest evolutionary tension I have faced in my life. It pulls on the frayed threads of my personal and ancestral wounds. Undressing me with each word. It demands my attention even when I try to avoid it. Simmering in the back of my experience – a ruthless taskmaster.
It’s not the physical act of writing that calls for most of my energy, but the internal process that allows the words to emerge onto the page. The book has taken me up, down, and around, spiraling through the discomforts and tensions I have learned throughout my life and those that I was born into. It often doesn’t make sense, but then the words come.
It takes me step-by-step. Bangs me on the head when I attempt to skip forward. All is revealed slowly but couldn’t be more perfect timing. Inside changes first and then something occurs outside that enables me to put more words on the page.
I have no daily quotas, hard deadlines, or benchmarks for this process. I’ve tried, but really how could I? When something is taking me. Possessed, I willingly, albeit with hesitation, walk into an unknown future.
So it’s not about the book. Although it will be nice to hold in my hand and represent the mess I had to navigate through, it is but the carrier for the progressions of life through me. It is my purpose.
We often have a highly romanticized view of our purpose thinking that it will always be exciting, inspiring, and expansive. What seems true about purpose to me is that it will eventually tear you apart. Purpose will make you dig deeper. It will strip you of your closely held beliefs. And it will never stop.
If we really want to create a work of art, we need to understand that this will come. Art is what speaks from our deepest humanity and through its expression our deepest humanity can be transformed. This is the only way the personal act of creating art can be resonant for the collective.
I question the topic of purpose these days because it’s rarely spoken about in tandem with its antecedent – the flattening and agonizing act of accepting the call. Again and again. It’s not just one time and you’re on the path. Every day you will need to choose your way, even if it was only ever meant for you.
I distract myself or procrastinate or avoid it altogether, but that’s the tension needed to create the art. This should not be pathologized. It couldn’t possibly happen all at once, on schedule, line item by line item.
It cannot be controlled or mechanized. We can only create the space for the next step to land within us. Maybe there are months between one step and the other or maybe we receive five steps immediately. This is not our business to hack. What I can do though is every day accept my calling and create an environment for insight to flow through me.
In the end, the art is just the vehicle. The further we buy into the dopamine solutions – clickbait, artificial intelligence saving us, etc. – the more we miss a chance for something to complete itself through our art. It may be the slow way, but truly, it’s the only way. We know this from inside. But we will fail to admit it to ourselves in fear of looking that fiery dragon of purpose head-on. And that’s fine as long as we are aware that’s happening.
So my book project is not giving me mercy because I wake up every day accepting what it demands of me. It’s not easy. Many days I don’t even have the capacity to face it. But it still works on me. Slowly melting my resistance into a viscous, then fluid, movement.
So when people ask me “How’s the book going?”, lately I’ve been responding “Terribly good!”
Lastly, I guess I should tell you what this damn thing is about. You may be wondering and now I’m happy to share.
I’m writing letters to my forever absent father. It’s a humbling act. But I’m grateful for every step.
Thank you for riding with me.
P.S. If you feel like donating to this project and receiving a free copy of the book when I publish it, please click the link below. And if you have already supported me, thank you! Receiving your support in this heart project has been so nourishing.
This is amazing, Jaden! Thank you so much for sharing :) You’re doing amazing!