Seth Chambers's Blog: Wild & Chaotic & Honest

You are not alone. . . in your need to be alone.

Today's topic is something that has been brewing for a very long time: the desperate need for alone time, and the devastating symptoms that arise when that need is not met.

This is something of utmost importance to me, a very personal topic, and I have lots of emotion tied up in it, so I warn you now: my presentation may be chaotic. Be prepared for rough edges, grammatical flubs, and biting honesty. But I need to write this, to get it out, because maybe, just maybe, it might resonate with other people (and certainly not just fellow writers).

The inability to get time to myself, preferably in my own place, has been a recurring theme in my life. The frustration of tapping only a small fraction of my potential simply for lack of personal space in which to move, breathe, and process. It seems that everything in my life is stopped up, clogged, by this one thing: never getting time to myself. My flow of energy, my ability to process, my creativity: it all feels blocked. So often, I head off to a coffee shop to get away. And no, the irony of going to a public place for privacy is not lost on me.

It seems ridiculous, and even to myself it often sounds like nothing more than an excuse for failure. It seems whiny, petty, and ungrateful. It sounds like I'm just making up a need. I have, after all, a comfortable home, good food, and health. Why should I complain just because somebody else is always and constantly in my space?

And yet… And yet… Sometimes I do get time to myself, and it is like drinking a tall glass of milk when my body is starved for protein. I fill back up, come back to life, and begin to breathe again.

Of course, often it doesn't begin that way, especially if it's been a long time since I got alone time. Then I often have a period in which I feel kind of stunned, and am reminded of that passaged in A Course In Miracles that talks about prisoners, newly released, not immediately jumping up. It takes time to regain energy. I often must take time to zone out and wander aimlessly before buckling down to do all the wonderful things I vowed to do when I got time to myself. Sometimes I just drop in sudden exhaustion, my body feeling heavy, as if I had just finished running a marathon. Sometimes I get angry at myself for not better utilizing the precious solitude that I had so fervently asked for.

This is a beginning stage, I have come to believe, in which the mind resets. It can be marked by feelings of confusion and listlessness. Emotions, long repressed, may rise to the surface. I watch TV (again, chastising myself for wasting precious alone-time), and weep at the least provocation.

During this stage, I stumble about in confusion as my mind gets its bearings.

And yet, beneath all this confusion, a giddy joy wells up. An excitement. A feeling of freedom over no longer being on call. If I fall into a heavy slumber, it will be supremely restful.

Then, gradually, a new phase begins, in which I really start my return to life. I breathe: fully, freely, and joyously. Where before I was quick to weep, now I readily laugh. Sometimes I stomp about the house ranting, swearing, and talking to people who are not there (like Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman). Or maybe I decompress like Charlie Sheen in Apocalypse Now. And yes, frustrated weeping may well be mixed with the maniacal laughter. What happens, in short, is all that repressed stuff comes bubbling to the surface with a vengeance. This is the stage of catharsis. It's like lancing a boil and getting rid of old poison.

During this cathartic stage, I breathe and move and laugh and scream. I say all the words that I maybe bit back before. I return to life. Sometimes food, even the simplest cuisine, will taste amazing, because it is a meal eaten in freedom. Music will often sound glorious. Or maybe I will simply sit and soak up the silence like a sponge.

Then, after letting go of so much stuff, I begin to fill back up again, with new energy. There is an interesting dynamic in alone-time. Just as one can often feel most alone within a crowd, I find myself most connected to everybody, everywhere, while by myself. I do my real work, my authentic work, while alone. This, essentially, is what I crave most: to do the work I came to this world to do.

I write this rambling entry in hopes that somebody else will relate and maybe take comfort from it. Sometimes I've felt horribly selfish for wanting the luxury of a few hours to myself. But I've come to see it as essential to functioning fully and creatively and powerfully. I feel like there's a lot of material I missed with this post, but I'll get around to fixing that soon. All I need is a bit of time to myself.

One of my favorite sayings is the Turkish proverb that goes, "He who tells the truth should keep one foot in the stirrups." Speak the truth, and somebody will want to crucify you. In today's world, unpopular opinions are labeled "hate speech." Discourse and debate has been replaced with violent protests.

Writing is a dangerous activity, at least if you do it right. If you do it honestly. Write the truth and the world will retaliate. In an ironic way, this can even be an effective barometer for how well you're doing your job.

I have written with total honestly and, on numerous occasions, met with a backlash. The world is threatened by any hint of honest truth. Most recently, somebody actually called the police on me for writing. Not for the content of what I wrote, so much, and not for bad grammar (not the GRAMMAR POLICE), but for the mere act of writing.

This happened a few days ago. I was feeling a need for alone time in which to write, and so walked over to a nearby park. A woman and her little kid were on the playground, but I figured that tuning them out would be easy enough. I sat in the gazebo, at the picnic table furthest from the playground. Sat with my back to them and began writing.

The words came and my creativity flowed and I felt at least somewhat productive. I had pretty much forgotten about the woman and her kid (a girl of about 9 years old), until they finished up at the playground and walked by the gazebo to the foot path. The girl said something I didn't catch, but I did hear, quite clearly, the mother say to her, "Well, you can report him. Here, we'll do it on the way home." At which point the girl started dialing her cell phone.

It sounded like the mother was encouraging the kid to report me to the police, but that didn't make any sense. I was sitting at a picnic table writing and minding my own business.

Even weirder was how CASUALLY the mother spoke those words. They walked without hurry, and so obviously were not afraid of me. They didn't cast backward glances. It was a bright, sunny day in a public park and I was doing nothing but writing in a notebook.

I tried to tell myself that I had misheard or, more likely, had misinterpreted what I heard. There was, after all, simply no reason for the mother to encourage the kid to "report" me. Of course, if I were to ask them about it, if I were to question them in any way, then that would only justify their behavior.

I thought about getting up and leaving, but decided no: I was doing nothing wrong, and now that they were leaving, I'd get some precious alone-time for writing (I have the strange habit of seeking alone-time in public places, as ironic as that may be).

So I sat and kept writing, then wondered whether the police would park and walk through the park, or drive along the foot path. And as soon as I wondered this (ask and it shall be answered), along comes a police vehicle, driving up the path. It didn't stop because, hey, all I was doing was sitting at a picnic table writing, and besides: nobody else was even in the park. But I've passed through this park numerous times before and have NEVER seen a police car patrolling the park like this.

I knew he was there because the kid, prompted by her mother, "reported" me, but it goes deeper than that. Strange things tend to happen when my creativity flows. Or when I feel I am "onto something," catching a glimpse of something like a flash in a mirror, when I am uncovering a bit of truth.

It really is like the world doesn't want me to dig up this truth, and so it lashes out, it defends itself, because this stuff happens, over and over again. Not when I am just cranking out the next scene of a story so much, but when I connect with something powerful, deep within my psyche. My creativity revs up and attracts drama like metal shavings to an electromagnet. I write, and the people around me become inexplicably upset. I write, and my phone rings with some urgent matter I must attend to. I write, and weird shit happens.

I said before that the cops were called due to my activity of writing, not the content of what I wrote. But that is probably not entirely true in the strictest sense. Sure, neither the mother or her kid had any notion of what I was scribbling in my notebook, but maybe the content of it, the psychic power behind it, moved them to act as they did.

And I know that sounds like lunatic paranoid delusion, and maybe you're thinking that Mom and her kid were maybe right to be suspicious of me. But I think I'm onto something here, and will continue to use my writings to probe for deeper and deeper truth. And will always keep one foot in the stirrups.