All my life I have strived to do better, improve myself, help the community, love my family, and cherish my significant other. It’s hard work but it’s easy work as well. Seems like a contradiction, doesn’t it? I don’t see it that way. Take for example, the quote I just found.
“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.”
When I read this, I didn’t need to study it. My mind instantly went to points in my life where I felt each of these emotions. I’ve had my stresses in my life but once I’m past them, I tend to forget about them. The feelings remain but the facts fade. I guess I do that as a way of protecting myself and staying healthy.
Most poignantly are the passions in my life. Building a shelf, lashing a complicated structure to protect life and limb, painting a portrait to get it just right, writing and rewriting a piece of dialog for a story; these are all passions I love.
I pour my heart and soul into my passions. My girlfriend and significant other is the most important passion in my life. I tend to put aside other passions in order to do for her. Helping others, even the little things, is also important to me. Whether it’s offering a drink to a house guest, helping someone find their lost keys, or helping someone in distress, I do with the love of passion.
When I put aside time to work on my creative works, my passions really come alive. I recall and relive those feelings. I get lost in the creative process. Even now, as I write this entry, my body and soul are coming alive as these feelings flood every nook and cranny.
Time seems to slow or even stop. Adrenaline floods my body, my mind focuses on the work and everything else disappears. It’s a wonderful feeling. In my mind, I go somewhere else. Just ask anyone who has observed me in this state. I’m gone from this world and I’m in another world. I’m so far gone, that it frustrates my girlfriend to no end. Whether she wants to make dinner, spend time with me, or just ask my opinion, she finds it hard to break in. When I finally acknowledge the interruption, I can get upset, even angry. I lose my train of thought. I lose my mojo.
I don’t mean it. I would prefer to not snap and get upset. She doesn’t deserve the response and she tries to be patient but at times, not. Sorry honey. Together, we work it out, make adjustments and move forward.
Yet, I can’t get away from this alternate reality I go to in my mind when I’m creating, painting or writing. It’s fun. It’s addicting. It’s a far better alternative to prefering alcohol, drugs or just being a dickwad.
I can’t wait to re-enter the zone of my passions. What about you? What are your passions that you love.
The image I’ve displayed shows the quote surrounded by a spiraling stair case. I can’t imagine how many steps it would take to climb that stair case and reach the top. Hundreds? Thousands?
“A goal without a plan is simply a wish.” CalamusWorks
I knew I screwed my body up something fierce during the heyday of the move. Was I ever right. Tammy, my masseuse whom I highly recommend, runs her own business 
Not to be too self-absorbed but I’m patting myself on the back. After, congratulations for these mini-accomplishments are few and far between. Whoo hoo!
When I compare myself to Webster, if there is any question, then by definition, I am normal. While I am unique, I also personally know hundreds of people and by extrapolation, millions who think like me and enjoy similar interests as I do and follow the same shows, hobbies and genres. In so many ways I conform to standards and patterns that society expects of me. I work for a living, pay my taxes, maintain my own home, take the garbage out and enjoy a daily shower. That last is really important.
Am I categorized as of having average intelligence? I think so. I definitely know that there are people smarter than myself and others who are not. That makes me normal.
Warm wishes
“Where do you write?”
Moving indoors, I either sit in a chair in my living room or my studio with the game on or more likely, playing music in the background. Since I have a day job I may write while on lunch, often at a table at a nearby café. I’m used to typing while slowly munching on a sandwich or drinking a cup of coffee.
That’s the wonderful thing about today’s laptop computers and tablets. I can write almost anywhere, if I choose. I like utilizing any spare time to write including jotting down a chapter or two in the waiting room as my car was being serviced. I prefer the use of a laptop and tablets since I can later read what I wrote which is a big plus.
Well, for me, my brain is constantly playing imagery in the background. It seems my best dialog comes to me at four in the morning while I’m half asleep. It is that sleep state between being fully awake and fully asleep where my mind floods itself with recollections of music, imagery and/or conversations. If you don’t experience it, consider yourself lucky. I might be jealous of you, though.
Endless Repeat
It really doesn’t matter what the project is either. I could be sketching a rough draft, drawing a final composition, painting in oils and watercolors or writing chapter after chapter of my new book. The song somehow allows me to disappear into my project. Lost in the realm I’m creating, the words seem to flow effortlessly to the keyboard, the paint flows from my brush to the canvas and the pencils and pastels blend smoothly across the paper. I’m in Heaven, Valhalla or any place one associates with a perfect alternate reality.
Hours later, I will emerge pleased with the progress I’ve made. After consuming food and drink, I come back and review my progress. I rarely find something that I want to touch up or change. I can only think that the trance I’m in somehow enhances the quality of my work. 
What inspired you to write?
Jump ahead to the later part of my life and I was becoming increasingly anxious to create something other than computer code. I picked up pencil and paper and rediscovered drawing. Picking up paint and brushes, I rediscovered painting. For a while, I thought about trying to market my creative works. I was quickly frustrated by the process and abandoned my feeble marketing efforts. I still draw and paint but I do it for the love of the craft.
Now, at that time, I wasn’t even thinking about publishing the story. I just wanted to write it. Now that I had a title, the rest of the story came together in a flash. Within minutes, I was furiously writing notes, capturing thoughts and ideas before they flashed out of existence. For me, it was a race to document the ideas, never mind whether I would use them all.
‘Methuselah’s Children’ was Heinlein’s early stories into what became his ‘Future Histories’ books. Over the decades, this author managed to weave many of his other books into the ‘Future Histories’ line.