Catching The Drift

So today I'm on one of those "right, I'm gonna get over myself and STAY over myself" missions. Been here so many times before, but somehow I never seem to make it stick. A lack of discipline? A lack of self-control? There's possibly an element of that, but I think the main reason is that whenever I try to impose restrictions on my mind, I tend to feel worse than when I don't. But since no restrictions is weakening me just as much these days, then it can't really hurt to impose a little discipline. Can it?

Whenever I adopt this type of mental state, a strange thing happens to my writing. I want to write more; however I feel compelled to write less. I want to write more because "get over yourself" seems to be a message worth sharing, especially with those who may be going through similar issues (although you do have to be careful as you run the risk of patronizing people). I think the keyword here is "share"...this frame of mind has messages that are genuinely worth sharing, even if it's just copying and pasting tried and tested words of wisdom. With other frames of mind the urge to write may be stronger; however this may be negated by the fact that what you're saying really only applies to yourself, and the vindication of your own compulsions. And where it gets tricky is that more often than not, the latter is of a higher standard than the former. I'm really big on originality, and if the only messages worth sharing are the ones that have been said a million times before, I honestly find it difficult to say them. If we use torrents as an analogy here, I'm the sort of person who would rather create and share my own torrents, rather than share those that are readily available elsewhere on the network.

What I'm getting at is that with this "get over yourself" frame of mind, writing feels like a part of myself that I need to "get over". The words come easier but the urge isn't there. And in the case of lyrics, the edge isn't there. I have a lyrics blog, but the stuff I've written on there so far is just schoolboy standard. I am aware that compulsion and necessity are things worth getting over, but it's hard to train yourself to be more measured and more middle-aged.