The Call of the Wild

As a rule, I am supposed to write every day.  And as a rule I do.  Maybe not what I am supposed to be writing, but I do write something every day.  I’ve been struggling this week, as I am in the middle of writing a book but haven’t worked on it in a few days.  It’s actually pretty close to being finished, and yet my mind has wandered to the point that I can’t focus.  At least, not on my book…

I am no doubt a dreamer.  It is, as I’ve said before, an important part of the writing process I believe.  And I’m seeing a creative pattern that is both very interesting and somewhat troubling, though being very clear I believe easy to rectify.  We’ll see.  It will be a matter of discipline, which is just not in abundance this morning.

I have found that when I read fiction, I have difficulty writing fiction.  Thus, when I read non-fiction the same is no longer true.  I am a well, deep and full of ideas and words.  Uh, huh.  But this week I’ve been reading fiction, and what does that tell you my friends?  You guessed it, bupkiss.

The fiction?  Jack London’s immortal The Call of the Wild.  Now, I’m not one to generally use the term bucket list.  For me it lacks something, a certain je ne sais quoi.  Oohh, I do know, actually.  It lacks style.  Or, in keeping with the French theme, panache. I love, love, love the idea, it just needs a new title.  But I digress.

Anyway, though I don’t often use the term I do actually have a list.  Writing was and will always be, on that list.  Why, you ask, when I have already written two novels, a book of poetry and am close to finishing a third novel?  Because I have a liste de seau of stories I’d like to write (and we’ll stick with French for now).

I also have a list of stories I’d like to read.  The Call of the Wild was on that list, but I knocked that one off as of last night.  And I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, actually.  Let me digress (yes, I’m sorry…again) for just a moment.  I’ll read anything about adventure, and will devour anything about mountaineering, and after reading Jon Krakauer’s epic Into Thin Air, I actively sought his equally epic Into the Wild.  In the latter, the tragic young man was heavily influenced by London, Tolstoy and Thoreau.  And, anyone interested in reading tales of adventure is sure to run across the name Jack London, and thus I was compelled to read the veritable classic The Call of the Wild.

It is short (about 87 pages) and quite easier to read than many other works of literature that are considered classic.  The pacing is great, the descriptive narrative keeps you wanting more, and the story itself is, as I said before, compelling.  It is a story of a ranch house dog in sleepy northern California who becomes something more once thrust into the wilds of Alaska.  It is a story of change.

Change, huh?  Something I’ve been exploring recently in my own life.  So it turns out that I can relate to a dog.  I’m okay with that.  There are worse things, and even still worse people to relate to, right?  Published in 1903, the themes of self, of abandonment and of a feeling of destiny are all as current in today’s clime as they were at the turn of the last century.  And I as write, I am suddenly overcome with a flood of emotion when I realize this blog posting has taken a turn I did not expect…

I began this page with an intent that has become but a faint memory.  In its place, an awakening and revelation have filled the chasms and shards of what was once but an exercise in writing.  To become fulfilling and what’s more, promising.  In the desire to quell the appetite that has ravaged me, I have truly discovered that which sustains me.  Hey, I told you last time I wouldn’t get all existential on you, but that was last time.

Insert New Age Music Here

Ok, I’ll be less poetic with my prose.  I have this curiosity to shake my own tree, and thus free myself from what is comfortable and experience the new (so maybe I won’t curtail the poetic prose).  I don’t want to stagnate, to become pallor in a life less ambition or desire or excitement.  I crave new things as if my life depends upon them, because I have realized (both before and now) that my life does indeed depend on new things.  Well, a balance really.  A balance between that which I know and love and need with all my heart and soul (my family and friends) and that which I have no knowledge or understanding of (the unknown).  But it is within the unknown that I am beginning to truly understand myself.

I guess maybe I should have settled in, as it seems there is no end to my writing this morning.

C’est la vie.

I will try to wrap up.  But first, a lesson I taught many of those that worked for me for twenty years, of whom I was charged with motivating and guiding and mentoring.  As adults, we have forgotten the newness and playfulness and excitement that was our youth.  More specifically, that was our childhood.  Life as a child is dynamic, both a descriptive word and theoretical process that I am completely in love with.

Dy.nam.ic            adj         \di-‘na-mik|

a: of or relating to physical force or energy

b: marked by usually continuous and productive activity or change

We are alive as children because everything is new. We know nothing, so the world around us is fresh and exciting.  Not always in a good way, I understand, but let’s focus on the positives for now.  Our lives are dynamic, and for many (nay I say most) of us it is what caused us to smile so damn much.  Dynamic is good.

But as we grew, we knew more and thus our lives became less about learning and more about repeating.  Repeating is good for a great many things.  But repeating isn’t as good for the mind or the heart or the soul as is continuous and productive activity or change.  So how do we achieve that dynamic life that we so enjoyed as toddlers?  We explore the unknown, we teach ourselves to return to a constant state of learning.  Once you re-train your mind to actively seek a constant state of learning, you will begin to see a dynamic change within.  I have taught this principle for years in business, and I have seen it work firsthand.  And it does work.

But all that knowledge and experience didn’t prevent me from failing to do what I was instructing others to do.  At least, not as it related to my professional life.  But as this evolution continues, each day I have discovered that though the future is unknown (and a little scary), that it is good for me.  My life in reboot!  So this evolution continued as I turned the last page to Jack London’s truly classic saga. I realized that in my desire to seek the unknown I had in fact discovered a little more of myself.

I am Buck, the protagonist canine of the story in whose existence on the sunny porch as a youth gave way to a life ruled by the law of club and fang only to find salvation in his heart among the wolves that arched their muzzles toward an endless sky and freely and spiritually released themselves to the call of the wild.

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