So, this story started when I'm back from the beach by driving my car after spending a full day reading and making sand castle and looking out at the waves. I am dwarfed by the canopy of trees as the light hits the leaves in the golden hour, when everything feels more vibrant and alive than any other time of day.
It's undeniable beautiful
But, in this moment. I really really miss this. Outwardly.I wear a stoic stare, but on the inside, I am filled with rage. An unreasonably intense anger surges through my veins, because the speed limit is 40 miles per hour and I am stuck behind a Kijang (this is Indonesia after all) vacillating between 35 and 40.
My anger makes no sense it comes without excuses. If I remain behind the Kijang, it might add eight minutes to this drive and I’ll be late for . . . nothing. Logically, mathematically, rationally, it doesn’t make sense to feel this angry in this moment. Meanwhile, I am missing out on the beauty that surrounds me. I am missing out on wonder. I am missing out on the moment. I am missing out on everything I claim to believe in.
Because of a Kijang ( Its not a real deer, but brand of a car )...haha
So, I take a deep breath and humming while using my brain to think. Why am I so angry? I’m baffled by this, until I realize that I’m not actually that angry. I’m anxious. I’m afraid. See, there is a line of cars behind me, driving as close to my bumper as possible and I realize that I look like “that car.” I look like the cause of this. The driver behind me throws his hands up in the air in disgust and I’m anxious. It’s the same sense of nervousness I feel when I’m in the TSA line and everyone is impatient and I’m not worried about missing my flight (I show up insanely early each time) so much as making the people in the line angry if I don’t pull my shoes off fast enough.
I don’t know the drivers behind me as I dont any clues after looking at their face, but I really, really don’t want to make them angry.
But that’s not entirely the story something else bugging my mind. I’m also nervous because I’m thinking about my to-do list. I have a story to write and a home work to finish and, even if it’s just another eight minutes, I don’t want to be delayed. Again, this fear makes no sense. It’s an artificial deadline that I imposed on myself. Nobody is going to fire me if i late posting my story. But I’m afraid of the perceived irrelevance that comes with putting out less content. I set up these invisible quotas out of a desire to do something big — a bigger project, a bigger audience, a bigger reach. And it’s all from this desire to do more and be more so that I’ll be more liked and of course votes.
I spend my days surrounded by metrics, an uncertainty that tell me just how much people like or vote what I make. They are so normal that they feel invisible — the quiet jolt of an upvote or a reply or the displeasure of my post gonna buried between new post river. I have moments when I worry about the rewards of my post or the number of votes on my post.
But here’s the thing: I know that fear is a creativity killer it will bring down your confidence your potential. It makes me risk-averse. I can tell when my post is getting uninteresting and it’s almost always because I suddenly care too much about what people think.
Meanwhile, my favorite creative work has always begun with wonder and curiosity and a desire to make something for someone I know and love.
The trending, the metrics, the comments and votes —At this time my intelligent works assuming they are just another impatient line of cars, pushing me to make a post too fast and follow too many rules and stick within the herd. Well, after reading [
And at this precise moment, it’s robbing me of wonder.
Then, suddenly, it’s not.
I take another deep breath and loosen my grip on the steering wheel while trying to reach out the seat belt, how stupid I forget to set it. I smile a genuine smile. Screw the line of cars behind me. Screw the unwritten rule that we’re supposed to be angry at the Kijang. This is my defiant gesture toward being mindlessly busy. I coast down the winding road, surrounded by the canopy of trees, bathing in the streams of light. It’s the golden hour and I’m not going to miss it because of a Kijang.