Effing The Ineffable

Two weeks ago, two things happened:

1. We got a major win.
2. We had an even larger failure. A movie script we’d been working on like crazy, supported by a wonderful set of allies, was submitted to a major studio at a very high level…and got slapped down. It was a large enough failure that it dwarfed the victory emotionally, and felt like a sledge hammer to the chest. All of the insecurity and pain and fear in my heart boiled up, every negative voice in my head came back to chew at me. Every demon in the darkness was alive and sharpening its teeth on my soul.

I continued to do my daily work, BUT IT HURT. Everything hurt. For about two days. I kept exercising because I have to be strong for my family, even though I didn’t want to. I kept writing because that’s what I do and who I am. I either be who I am, or I die. I loved my wife and my son and my daughter because they are all the way in my heart, and self-pity doesn’t give me the right to dump my shit on them.

I focused ALL my energy on taking just one step a day…but that step, against great resistance, was designed to clear my head JUST A LITTLE. Just enough to take another step…

And those things: constant balanced intense action, commitment to things larger than myself, and NEEDING to fulfill my destiny and identity…cycled me through the depression and out the other side. Just slogging ahead on the right things, those right things determined by years of study, would eventually get me out of the fog. I knew it. KNEW IT. Even…