Emptiness

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.”

-Jonathan Safran Foer

I ran out of quotes.

How did that happen? I was able to find the source of inspiration for this little thing I do called “The Gun’s Quotes” in so many different places. Maybe it was a conversation that I had. Maybe it was something I read while perusing the news during lunch. Maybe it was a thought that came to me during church. A good chunk of them came to me in college. Little tidbits of wisdom from a friend, a pastor or a professor or two. The first one came from a locker room… way back almost 15 years ago when I was in high school dressing up for what would be an eventual beat-down. (Spoiler Alert: Our team was the one that got the beat-down.)

Then it stopped. I had used Google to download quotes from random sources based upon a feeling I had that night, but it seemed forced. There was no longer this flow of inspiration or the ability to pick-up on it. Somehow, over the course of the last several years, I found myself less inspired, less intrigued by beauty, less aware of the tiny little lessons that life teaches you as you walk on by. In a phrase, it became a burden to do what used to be free-flowing and uplifting, awe-striking and inspiring. What happened?

Not satisfied with taking two or three hours to write where it used to take 30-45 minutes, I stopped. Creative juices can’t be squeezed from a fruit. They are more like maple trees. You need to leave your empty bucket there for a few days and then come back to find it full. There is nothing you can do to speed up the process. If it took too long for the bucket to fill, I went to the next tree. Eventually, however, my orchard ran out.

Wait a minute… did the orchard run out or did I simply not want to wait around anymore, finding the simple task of waiting too slow for a life that was quickly speeding up? Have I become what I have so often preached against… too busy to stop and smell the roses? Is the inspiration still there and I’m just too busy to stop and listen?

The fact that I have to ask that question is pretty damning evidence that, indeed, that is the case.

How does one solve this? The answer can only be to slow down again. Speeding up, however, is easy in comparison to the act of stopping. Once you are used to a certain pace, slowing back down is agonizing. It seems as though others around you can’t keep it or drag you down. For a time, it seems like grandma is in the passing lane, driving slower than the rest of the traffic. All you want to down is slam on the accelerator again.

You can’t. Otherwise, you will miss the wildflowers that are on the side of the highway, waving in the wind. Suddenly, you come to realize that this slow driver in front of you, who won’t let you by, was really a guardian angel, close friend or family member who got in your way intentionally so that you could see something that you would have otherwise missed.

I’ve missed writing these things and the source of inspiration that caused them in the first place.

What have you been missing?

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!