Day: August 8, 2012

I have a problem with the word potential. It feels like an empty promise. Everyone is born with potential, and as we age that potential ticks towards empty like the minutes of our lives. Just the other day I watched an excellent commercial by Nike that showed a very overweight boy running to the point where his body dripped with sweat. That is potential in its raw form. That is the realization that our bodies are molded by ourselves and we must put in the required effort in order to achieve the goals we wish for ourselves. This is where the general understanding of potential fails.

We, at least in this iteration of American society, place caps on potential. It is pervasive. We compare everyone to someone who came before. Usain Bolt is trying to be Carl Lewis, Lebron James is trying to be Jordan, every female astronaut is trying to be Sally Ride. This may be true, but it should not be. Potential, as a capping mechanism, weakens our individual ability to grow beyond the boundaries of someone else’s imagination. When I started writing I wanted to be the next Stephen King. I didn’t want to rule his genre, but I wanted to be that big. This was the cap of my imagination. Then, as I grew and saw the walls of opportunity closing in, I wanted to be the next Nigel Findley, the next Kenson, the list goes on.

What I didn’t want to be was the first me. I did not recognize what that could mean, because there was no roadmap to get there, which is what potential unfortunately creates. Potential allows one to craft a path by someone else’s history. It tells you how to get somewhere, which is in the vicinity of where you thought you wanted to go, but is unlikely to be anywhere near where you are meant or capable of going on your own. I am not saying in makes you wish for more than you can be or even less, but it makes you wish for someone else’s experience when all we should ever wish for is what we ourselves are capable of becoming.

I don’t talk about my kids in terms of potential. I talk about them in terms of ability and preparedness. I give them the skills and the tools to learn what they want to be. They need to build their own roads to get there.

Some Thoughts:

1. I know this is waiver wednesday, but I wanted to put it on hold for a very special wednesday next week once the pre-season is in full swing.

2. Writing. Yeah, I’m back at it. Nothing I can say right now other than there is some GREAT stuff in the pipe. Stay tuned.

How many more posts can I make? Will we see 8465. Waiver Wednesday? Or will I have decided to move on by then? When is enough enough? I have been thinking about time a lot lately as the school year quickly approaches. I started the blog in a time of great need; when my writing no longer spoke to me and the rest of my life followed suit. I needed it then, like a lifeline to my own soul. Since that time the need waned and I struggled to find topics to converse about. Several times I talked, Seinfeld-like, about absolutely nothing. In recent months I have found patterns and conversations to follow, but they don’t strike me with the necessary regularity to make the columns valuable to potential readers. Of course, this didn’t start out about the readers, nor are there enough to significantly impact the direction. No, this all comes back to time.

When will it be time to break the rule?

The rule was about finding that time to write in spite of the world around me. That challenge still exists, perhaps to a greater extent than it previously did, because the writing demands are pacing the personal demands and there are still only 24hrs in a day. Two years ago I found myself trying to parcel out time according to a set schedule. This hour is four tv, is for gym, this for kids. That strategy is useless unless you control the elements demanding your time. So, now I go with it and squeeze in my writing time as I can, and that still is not enough.

I hope to write 4000 words tomorrow. It is the first day I have to write without any responsibility over a 7 hr block. Out of that time, I will likely write for 4 hours, with the rest going to the nubile up stage and other odds and ends. I wish I had that chunk every day, but normally I have a tenth of it. That tells me this: it is not time for the rule to be broken.

So long as I still struggle to write, I will have need of the ten minute rule. Besides, where else will I Talk about football on wednesdays?