Loving So Much You Hate It

I don't think I could say with certainty that I don't have a passion for writing. But I can confidently say that sometimes I might love it so much that I hate it.

I hold on too tight, and when I finally open my white-knuckled hand I am upset to find the crushed butterfly, the smashed flower.

This reminds me of something I read by Hemingway that I found just recently, in which he explains that those who love things that are immortal can love them as deeply as they can and do so forever, and they don't have to lose them. When we love something that will die, things that are material or living or tangible, we suffer the pain of losing them.

As with the existential quandaries posed by Nietzsche and the like, the real matter is how we react to that problem. That is what will ultimately define us.

To love something in spite of knowing that we will lose it in the end, some way or another, may be the greatest capacity we have.

My love for writing ebbs and flows. There are days I wake up to find it has gone in the night, leaving emptiness and frustration. It cannot be with me at all times. It isn't me. It is another, as a person is another. It also has a life of its own. Places to go, things to do. It will take me places as I take it places. It will teach me things as I teach it things. And when it leaves I cannot wallow, paralyzed for hours, days, weeks, months until its return. There is work to be done whether the boss is breathing down your neck or not.

The bird must leave the nest to fly. The great white shark will die in captivity. It can be no other way.