Ian Scott Paterson

What I Lost and Want Back

There was a time not too long ago when I had a voice. It wasn’t one you could lean your ear toward or catch on a breezy day downwind of me. It was stronger and much more silent.

There was a time not too long ago when I was a writer. I spoke in consonants and vowels. I conversed in alliteration and metaphor. I made the well read grin with simile.

And then it was gone.

You see, there’s a lot more going on in 2010 than The Year of Betterment. There’s a community here and it’s at war. I’ve got several friends who, like me, have devoted their daily lives – and, henceforth, blogs – to become better people by one set of means or another, and we’re all having days/weeks/months that canvas the spectrum from “good” to “more or less stagnant”. But I see them daily plugging away. Chris and Kayla Beggs, Rebetha, Chris Nelson; these people inspire me.

I had a conversation with Rebetha the other day about how hers is one of the only blogs on my reader that I read every single time she posts. You know why? Because that woman has a voice. I read the things she posts that she, like we all do, probably rolls her eyes and blushes at once she’s posted it and probably seriously considers deleting very soon it’s initial conquest into the world. But why do I read them? Because she writes from a plane above the bullshit. She honestly and beautifully lays out each and every sentence in her own voice. And it that respect, to me, it’s poetry. Chris (Beggs) and Kayla are some of my favorite people in the world, and both have very well-written, approachable, vocal health-centered blogs that explore topics vital to several things I’m wanting my life to reflect after this year, and Chris (Nelson) is one of the most honest bloggers I’ve ever read who, like me, is just another man in the world trying to pull his shit together. His transparence is seriously inspiring.

And then I read my blog.

Now, granted, I’ll admit that I’m pretty hard on myself most of the time. But, as you writers out there all well know, there’s a feeling you get when you’ve written something that is an out-pouring of who you are, that you can’t contain, that upon publishing validates you in some way and gives you a release that allows your head to clear for a second. We call it a voice.

Well, it seems I lost my voice a while back. I don’t know when it went, but it scurried off into some dark corner of a room I rarely go into and it’s refusing to come out until I find and tag it “It” before it makes it back to Base.

A couple weekends ago, the Beggs’ siblings, myself, and some close friends went to the lake for a few days. It was one of the most relaxing, cathartic, time-well-spent weekends of my life. It was my first real vacation as a working adult in corporate America and every hour flew by far too quickly. On the drive back home, blown in my direction by Dr. Dog, Eisley, Ms. Spektor, Bright Eyes and the open road, I could feel my voice calling back to me, aching to be found.

And I think I’m closing in on it.

2010: 07/07
POSTED BY: Ian Scott Paterson
CATEGORY: Plinky
The Year of Betterment
4 comments

The Halfway Point

You should see my room. It’s disgusting. Clothes all over the floor, empty pizza boxes in the corner, dirty glasses on my nightstand. It’s seriously gross. Those of you who’ve ridden in my car know that it’s pretty much the same story in there. I don’t keep a check book registry. I never open my mail. I never answer a phone call from a number I don’t recognize, and I very rarely ever spend time inside my own house.

Basically, I try to hide from life.

The cruel irony in all of this is that The Year of Betterment was supposed to bring me out of that, but instead it just shoved me deeper into ontological diaspora. See what I did there, Theologians?

If I didn’t have my friends, I’d probably have gone crazy by now. The Narnians, The Stable, Kansas Citians, I thank you. Also, I’m sorry.

The good news is that I’m in motion. I’m getting my shit together and I’m going to finish this thing. Probably not in any way that any of us imagined me finishing it, but it’s happening nonetheless. It’s been six months and in many ways I’m just the same as I was in January. But in a lot of ways I’m very different. And different, in my operative definition, is usually always better.

Thanks for putting up with me for six months, guys. Here’s to six more.

2010: 06/15
POSTED BY: Ian Scott Paterson
CATEGORY: Clearing the Air
The Year of Betterment
3 comments

Why I’m a Shitty Blogger

For a long time now I’ve been telling myself I want to be a writer. I’ve always had an active imagination and have done my best to indulge it while keeping just enough of an anchor in reality to be able to see if it might be changing for the better. So, out of nutritional concern for my hypo-metabolic internal monologue and the need to take preventative measures against one hell of a personality disorder, I became one who writes.

Social Media baffles me. It simultaneously achieves both the exact and direct opposite goals it sets out to. It gives a person the opportunity to “sell” themselves to an infinitely bigger audience than could ever be confronted face to face, but in doing so it creates a narrow path for you to squeeze through on your way to the main stage. It tweaks you, chips away at you, melts you, remolds you. By the time you’ve become successful at social media you’ve achieved two things: 1) You’ve successfully provided an entire global community the opportunity to experience what it is you have to offer them, and 2) You’ve traded the thing you have to offer them away for the opportunity to share it with the world.

Basically I’m just scared. I don’t want to know what it is to achieve a dream, because I’m terrified that by the time I achieve it, achieving it won’t be enough anymore. I’m scared to try for more, because despite whatever the end goal I pretend there is, in reality more is all I’ll ever really want.

So I become a shitty blogger. I try to disappear. I hide.

Sooner or later, though, I’ve got to realize that my running away from life isn’t fair to me or anyone I come into contact with.

In an effort to save you from more self-deprecating word-vomit, I’ll just leave you with a quote from a fellow asshole who also writes – one that I can’t get out of my head:

“Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage; courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.”
— Robert McKee