Recently I have been floundering, awash in a sea of self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-not-going-anywhereness. These are symptoms of depression and part and parcel with a life lived with anxiety. The depressed individual often finds simple tasks difficult, and finds it difficult to do anything of any import. That has certainly been me.
But lately I have wanted to break free, to really lurch forward, and make a road for myself. I wrote previously about Joss Whedon, and that somehow he found the time while filming the Avengers 2 to write a simple little folk song called “Big Giant Me”, and is collaborating with the artist who performed it to produce an EP. If Whedon can find time and energy like that, surely I, in the midst of my depression and social anxiety, can find time to make my own road.
To that end I have blown the dust off a book I picked up in college entitled The Ode Less Traveled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry (and yes, the Stephen Fry of staggering Twitter celebrity, of Jeeves and Wooster, of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and of V for Vendetta and the Hobbit trilogy). In this book, Fry helps the gentle novice explore the world of poetry from beginning to villanelle.
I consider myself more than a novice in the poetical world, but the truth is, I write mainly free verse, and I’ve never labored to master meter or many poetical forms. This is something that I would like to remedy. I would like to explore and push myself to learn and to obey the rules as the masters of the craft have done. Maybe I will still mainly write free verse, but I would like to know that I have done what I can to learn the ropes, as it were.
To that end, I will work through the Ode Less Travelled with Stephen Fry and learn what I can. When I am depressed and anxious, hopefully I can push myself to create just a little. Having a guide and a path easily marked usually helps the depressed individual move along, and the Ode Less Travelled should be such a guide and a path for me. Whatever else I may be, I want to be a poet. Perhaps I can unlock my Poet Within.
I tell you about it because I have a need to share most things, and because I want this to be real. I will be sharing what I write with the world, and I am starting at the beginning. Thus far I have mastered the introduction and end user agreement of the book. Well, almost. Mr. Fry wants his readers to have a notebook to keep with them always, as well as writing utensils, and I think buying a new notebook and new pencils will make this somewhat more real to me. To that end I must do something else I am loathe to do: enter the world of men and move around, but I think I will head to Barnes and Noble, a place certain to have what I need, and also a quieter place in the wide loudness of the world.
So pray with me, as I pray to the universe, to allow me this small breakthrough of my depression, that it may lead to greater and bigger things, or a least a little poetry.
a simple man 