As I’ve grown older, I’ve shifted from railing against being stuck to seeing it as an illusion, since circumstances can’t help but dissolve and change (into death and release, if nothing else). My frustration with being stuck, however, can feel uncomfortably real. That can be leavened through my ability to reframe the situation, by my ability to creatively rationalize why I’m not actually stuck, how there might be an opportunity lying in wait, or simply by my ability to be a happy idiot, trusting that things will eventually change for the better.
Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha 
You know, getting past that feeling of grande inertia simply because other cogs in the machine are geared at their own speed and not ours is a good thing. It’s a classic horse to water scenario and we can’t beat ourselves up for feeling the big dumb fuck is too stupid to see the water, it’s thirst isn;t on the same time line as our desire to see it drink so we can get on down the road.
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I feel like sometimes alot of us think we’re stuck, when we just feel stuck. I’m not saying alot of people don’t ever get stuck though
Also I’m curious, what inspired your username?
Are you referring to yourself as a Dirty SciFi Buddha?
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My first books were science fiction, with Buddhist existentialist philosophy mixed in towards the end. I guess I could refer to myself as dirtyscifibuddha, although I always thoguht of it as my website name.
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Oh okay
Sorry I wasn’t sure if it’s problematic username or not to refer to yourself as Buddha – sometimes I let my guilt get in the way. My apologies
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I’m going for the Happy Idiot after these last 18 months! Thanks.
Gwen.
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The happy idiot is one of the most ironically empowering places to be, in my opinion.
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Oh hell yeah!
This is a great post. I am constantly getting down on myself for not pushing hard enough, not making enough waves, not being bolder, blah blah blah. But as you say, it’s important to remember that if things seem to have stopped moving, it’s just cause we’ve imagined that to be the case.
Nothing stays the same. Not for a minute. And any conviction to the contrary is an illusion.
But it’s a powerful Illusion. And it’s reassuring to read that even people who pump out non-stop, batshit crazy ads for their books and who are generally fountains of cool content, can suffer from it too. Keep on being a happy idiot. I know I’ll keep on striving to do the same!
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Appreciate the positivity! I used to think being a happy idiot was kind of the default response to all the idiocy in the world, but I’m now convinced it’s ironically empowering in far-reaching ways.
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If we have a habit of waiting for opportunity to arise, we can start to feel ‘stuck’ if everything seems quiet. We get to a certain point in a process, for example, but don’t know how to continue. We’ll ‘try’ different things but always with the fear that trying the wrong thing could ruin the whole process (or at best waste a lot of time). We need that new, happy accident that shows how to progress. If we understood the process we’re attempting, we could [instead of just waiting] build more of what _creates_ opportunity. A writer who is stuck on a plot twist could, for example, build out more of the back-story of his or her characters until ‘what they would do next’ becomes clear. A poet or artist could try to feel, more vibrantly, the emotions that fired them. An entrepreneur could research their market. I’m currently learning to play guitar, and there’s no substitute for making chord shapes and listening to how they sound … It may not be a tune, but it’s building what tunes arise from.
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Well said. It does take trust in the process and serendipitous occurrence, in my experience as well.
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You are a legend. Keep ✍️ you have a knack.
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Thank you! Will do! 😊
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No worries the pleasure is mine.
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Thanks for sharing. I am sometimes just trying to keep my canoe from tipping over in the approaching whitewater.
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I’m with you–I’ve been caught in whitewater much more than I would prefer!
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Feel the same way most all the time. I have to trick my brain and pretend the thing I am stuck on is like a car stuck in snow. How would I get out of this one if it was a machine. Would I use a rope? Did I forget to put my chains on my tires? Would I call someone? Whatever the answer is, I then feel it in my chest. Whichever answer brings a sense of warmth, I do that. Not sure if that helps get me unstuck, but it sure does get me out of the never ending stories swamp of sadness.
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Good on you for leveraging intuition. All too often, I’ve checked every box and used seemingly watertight logic, then things have gone wrong because I wasn’t listening to my intuition.
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