Why do I have to have a topic?

Well, this writing every day project is going well. I am indeed writing every day, and sometimes, most of the time in fact, I have something to write about. I think of friends who have blogs who write every day, and wonder how long it took before they felt in a groove with it. I remember talking to my friend Philip Newell who has written and published many books who told me that even after writing for many years, it is usually still, as he put it, "a slow slog." So the goal is to just keep doing it.

It's not as if I don't have a bunch of subjects that could be turned into more sustained projects, perhaps even books - I absolutely do. I won't share them with you right now because I know that blogs are probably most read by others who blog/write, and I don't want to find out somewhere down the road that one of you got the idea from me to write the same thing I wanted to write! I know: I should put my ego aside and realize that most if not all of my ideas are nothing new (nihil sub sole novum, right? (it sounds so much cooler in Latin!)).

So here I sit without a topic. I have so many interests: sports, music, literature, film. Surely, I should be able to get a topic out of all those! Plus there are many possible things to talk about from my everyday life - I've already talked about cooking, but I could share with you things about my job hunt, or any number of other things I care about, like politics and religion and the weather, blah, blah, blah.

But I also feel like the measure of a writer may be when he doesn't have anything particular to write about. A good musician can enthrall you with one note, and a good actor only needs one look, one word, to move you, right? So a good writer, like a good stand-up comedian or orator or anyone else who thrives on thinking on their feet, should be able to make something out of nothing, just by taking a deep breath, looking within, and letting the fingers go flying over the keyboard.

Of course, even as I contemplate this, my mind searches for topics. Hey, I could tell you how I started writing... or, what about talking about my dreams for this blog for the future... or, I don't know what. But I will, for the moment, still resist letting my anxiety about not having anything to talk about steer me towards relying on a topic. I love telling stories, but in order for this blog to not just be a self-centered exercise in having a chance to be the hero and control the point of view, there has to be some alternate view.
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Nihil sub sole novum. Or as Dylan Thomas put it, in regard to the task of writing, "the lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft." "On no work of words" is one of my favorite Thomas poems. It's a bit bleak, and I think we all need to make friends with bleak, to get comfortable sitting in the dark, so that we can encounter on a deep level our own strength. If you can't sit still without your blackberry and laptop and iPod to keep you company, well, then you're in a bit of trouble. As we know, at the end we will lose all those things, and more. But when we can become brothers in bleak with Mr. Thomas, I think we can begin to experience that after everything is gone, what is left is much more.

I'm not giving you some kind of Christian message (although I am a Christian of sorts, admittedly). I'm just saying that we draw on resources deep within us all the time, strength and humor and empathy and creative thinking, that will be with us to the very end. Even if our last days are spent comatose and mostly braindead, I still believe there is something going on in there. I know, this has turned kind of morbid. I needn't have chosen as my topic not having one. I could've talked about any number of different subjects. But anyone who knows me well has to know that I do not resist thinking about death when appropriate.

Sure I'm afraid about leaving this earth and hope to have as much time as possible left here. Not that however much time I have will ever be enough. My life is very rich. Yes, I have creature comforts, but that's not what I mean. I mean that I live in a time full of possibilities, in a country where I am relatively free from harm, in reasonably good health, both of mind and body, with a healthy modicum of good spirit, optimism and determination. As I go forward, writing this blog, I hope to express what I have and what I am, while also letting in all the warmth, beauty, and complexity of what I experience around me.