I Ain’t Going Anywhere

They say you can’t wait for inspiration; you just have to write. I’m not sure who “they” are, but I’ve surely said it a time or two. So, perhaps after nearly 150,000 words and three years of consistency with writing this column, I’m becoming an expert in faking the funk to get words on the page. So far, so good.

In The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield (Black Irish Entertainment), Pressfield says, “There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.” I’m currently sitting in my truck in a Food Lion parking lot. It’s quiet here, more or less.

I didn’t want to wait until I had a million-dollar idea sometime later this evening. I didn’t even write my article last week until a few hours after it was supposed to go live. I’ve been running on fumes, but better late than never. A few of you texted me to ask if everything was okay. It warmed my heart to know that not only do you care, but you look forward to these diatribes of mine. I heard you. So, from the driver’s seat of my Tundra, it’s now or never. I’m flurry-typing with my thumbs as folks scuttle by unaware of the literary brilliance taking shape on my iPhone. This thing is developing in real time as you read it, so buckle up.

Since mandatory overtime at my job is the only thing more consistent than my posting schedule the last few years, I’ve been working a lot of 12-hour days lately. After work, I started to get anxious. I was thinking of all the things I need to do, all the projects I need to finish but don’t have the time or money to tackle. It’s easy to get overwhelmed that way. So, I decided to grab a backpack and hit the woods. It’s hard to be in my head when I’m in nature. Plus, nothing screams louder than the bone-on-bone pain of having no knee cartilage. Hey, you do what it takes sometimes to counter the inner voices of doubt and discouragement, right?

Yesterday at the VA, I got hyaluronic acid gel injected into the space behind my kneecaps with 2-inch needles. I don’t get squeamish with needles, but I always have to look away for this procedure. Something about jabbing something sharp into my joints is unnerving. Thankfully, it has helped mitigate the pain, but it hobbles me for several days post-injection. Still, I needed to beat feet and touch dirt. It helped. I was in a better headspace after.

I read somewhere that willow branches have natural rooting hormones built in, and if they’re in or near water, you can take cuttings and have a decent success rate at transplanting them elsewhere. So, I’ve been hiking with small pruning shears with the intent of creating a willow wonderland in my backyard. I gathered a handful of branches, and I’m sure I looked like a sight for the small stretch where I walked along a busy road back to my truck, proudly bebopping with shrubbery under my arms.

Sometimes, having a mission, any mission, helps to shift my focus away from the insurmountable volume of daily chores and home projects. Today’s mission was to gather a few branches to help establish Carolina willows along the banks of my small pond. It was a success. The list is still long, but I completed a task. One thing off the list. That feels good.

My wife has been out of the country for the last week, and she won’t be back for another handful of days. I’ve been trying to accomplish as much as I can in her absence, all while fending for myself and sometimes forgetting to eat. I decided to swing into a fast-food spot for some chicken and mashed potatoes after my hike. The voice in the drive-thru was a disembodied robot. The computerized speech irritated me to no end when it failed to take my order correctly. I drove off mad. I hate this new depersonalized existence. As a millennial, I have a foot in two worlds. I’m firmly connected to nature and the old ways, while also proficient in the digital landscape. I prefer the former to the latter.

Still, the rise in AI and automation is concerning. When they phase out the humans, where does that leave us? I always refuse to use self-checkout at the grocery store. That’s one less human job, and truthfully, I don’t want to deal with it. I also find it mildly concerning that all the folks at the forefront of creating artificial intelligence are quitting and retreating to the woods or building bunkers. We’ve all seen the Terminator movies; this doesn’t end well when the machines become self-aware. Lord help us.

As an artist and storyteller, I fear my voice will someday be replaced by something artificial. That digital edifice will lack grammatical errors, rambling rants, and soul. Maybe, full circle, that’s why I’m so adamant about writing even when I have very little to say. I never want to be replaced by some sterile version of me. I want to illustrate the world as I see it: all the dirt and rough edges on full, imperfect human display. I’m not prepared to be replaced, and I ain’t going anywhere.

_____________________________

Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Bethania, North Carolina. His work has appeared in Dead Reckoning Collective, The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and other outlets, and he directed Hammer Down, a documentary about his 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with Alpha Battery 5-113th of the North Carolina Army National Guard. For The Havok Journal, he often writes essays and reflections about war memory, veteran life, the outdoors, and everyday experience. You can find his books, collected works, and social media at www.stanlakecreates.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.