I am burned out tonight.

I sat down to write something. I thought this creative outlet might be a helpful break from preparing for a court hearing I have in the morning. Work has been a special kind of overwhelming lately. Not an exciting kind. The kind that makes it hard to sleep or enjoy things that aren't work.

So I sat down to write something. I thought it would be easy. And I thought it would be helpful. Because sometimes when I feel inadequate at something, it calms me to do something in which I believe I'm competent. It's not a big thing, but I usually feel competent jotting down some story or jokes or thoughts that will bore some troll enough to hate what I have to say but weirdly not enough to stop reading Stranger.

But I sat down to write something, and nothing really came out. I stared at the blank white space in the middle of the screen, a blinking cursor inviting me to say something every three-quarters of a second.

I stared at it for a while. I typed a couple of things and then deleted those things. Because they weren't funny. Or helpful.


Someone told me once that being a lawyer is incompatible with being creative. I thought this was a lie, because many lawyers I've known make their money off of being creative. For better or worse. But I guess, in hindsight, that person was talking about a different kind of creativity.

That person was probably talking about the kind of creativity that powers entertaining writings and inspiring music and the kind of creativity people pay to see.

I've fought for 5 or so years now to make sure there is no victor to this supposed battle between professional success and artistic endeavor, hoping that throwing equal weight to each side of the tug-of-war isn't just making me mediocre at both.

I don't know where this is going. I just know that I sat down to write something, and now there are some words here that say some stuff that I should probably think about a little more. But not tonight. It's 11:00 and I've got miles to go before I sleep.

~It Just Gets Stranger