Life seems more and more finite to me. Even the very greatest humans will die, and it has always been so.
I look at all I have done in my life and I see a great volume of unfinished work-- countless half-finished stories and projects, some finished, needing refinement-- nothing great or even close to great.
Shelley was scarcely older than me when he died, but he left his marks, and still people muse over and delight in his work.
I feel that I am nothing. How can I claim that anything I have done is worthwhile? That the work for which I feel such passion is noteworthy? It still needs so much more, and I try and toil, and still it needs so much more.
Personal relationships and acts of kindness be damned. It's my writing I want to leave as legacy. I have always known that I will know when I have done all I ought. I feel now that I have not even started the work, not even left enough behind so that others would marvel at my work should I die and say, She might have been truly great.
I feel there is so much more to do. I feel so impatient to get things underway, but I scarcely know how. I am so excruciatingly aware of all I don't know, of my shortcomings. And there is the inescapable fear probing me that one day I will come to my termination, and not have realized everything I planned.
There are a thousand little things persuading me to give up my dreams, a hundred thousand pulls and distractions that make me forget, weaknesses in my character I will scarcely acknowledge. They frighten me. I sometimes feel life itself is set against me, and that it is impossible in this society to achieve artistic greatness.
I look at all I have done in my life and I see a great volume of unfinished work-- countless half-finished stories and projects, some finished, needing refinement-- nothing great or even close to great.
Shelley was scarcely older than me when he died, but he left his marks, and still people muse over and delight in his work.
I feel that I am nothing. How can I claim that anything I have done is worthwhile? That the work for which I feel such passion is noteworthy? It still needs so much more, and I try and toil, and still it needs so much more.
Personal relationships and acts of kindness be damned. It's my writing I want to leave as legacy. I have always known that I will know when I have done all I ought. I feel now that I have not even started the work, not even left enough behind so that others would marvel at my work should I die and say, She might have been truly great.
I feel there is so much more to do. I feel so impatient to get things underway, but I scarcely know how. I am so excruciatingly aware of all I don't know, of my shortcomings. And there is the inescapable fear probing me that one day I will come to my termination, and not have realized everything I planned.
There are a thousand little things persuading me to give up my dreams, a hundred thousand pulls and distractions that make me forget, weaknesses in my character I will scarcely acknowledge. They frighten me. I sometimes feel life itself is set against me, and that it is impossible in this society to achieve artistic greatness.