Thought for Food

I was told to do a freewrite for a class. I came up with this. It's not actually a story, but a personal musing. Still I hope you find it entertaining or enlightening. Please give me your thoughts for food. (And by this I do not mean I will trade food for your thoughts. I mean I will eat your thoughts.)

Thought for Food

Right now I don’t want to write. I don’t want to read either. I mean, I do. I want to do both. I want to find out what will happen to Lerris, but I also want the joy and accomplishment that comes from writing. I want both these things, and yet, I don’t feel like doing the work. I want the payoff without the effort. Here’s the thing though. When I went to work today building the announcer’s box with David, I didn’t feel like doing it. I was hot and tired and sore, and I simply didn’t want to do it. When the day was done I looked at all we had accomplished. It was a good feeling. Satisfying. But it was only satisfying after the work was done. We’ll go back tomorrow and finish, and then I’ll look at it and feel a sense of accomplishment for having created something good in this world. Really though, if we showed up tomorrow morning and the whole thing had been finished by elves or trolls or even werewolves in the night I would be elated. I would love to not have to build the box. The joy is in the finished product. I do not feel good standing in the heat and getting sweaty and gross and tired. I feel good after it’s over. With writing and reading that’s not the case at all. With writing and reading, the joy is not in the product as much as the process. I don’t want to just know what happens to Lerris. I want to discover it. I want the journey as much or more than I want the destination. I don’t want to have written a terrific story as much as I want to write one. In the writing I am a creator, and I am proud of my creation because I did it not because I have done it. I know that last sentence may be somewhat confusing, but please try to think about what I can mean. The joy you’ll feel won’t be in knowing the deep thoughts of my heart. (As if the heart did any thinking. Silly poets.) There is not as much joy in knowledge as in discovery. Thought for food.