All of it is really just absurd and seems improbable

~ Live & Learn

“While working on my first novel, I developed Central Serous Retinopathy, or stress-related vision loss in my left eye. Doctors said it was imperative that I relax, but I wasn’t about to give up my passion. Then it hit me: the absurd reality that writing a book robbed me of my sight. The human brain is powerful enough to send a man to the moon, yet, writing nearly blinded me. In that moment of clarity, I realized that reflecting on the sheer absurdity of existence was key. Now, whenever I find myself overwhelmed, I sit back, pet my dog, and count the innumerable bizarre occurrences that had to happen just so in order for me to be sitting in front of my typewriter at that moment: the highly volatile mixture of elements that exploded into our universe; the curious Tiktaalik fish that thought, What’s on that dry stuff?; and the fact that my mother and father, millions of years and coincidences later, graciously decided to make another human. All of it is really just absurd and seems improbable. Once I’ve reflected on that for a while, writing hardly seems impossible and I enter a state of repose, grateful to get back to work.”

— Michael A. Ferro, author of TITLE 13 in Writers Recommend (Poets & Writers, July 12, 2018)

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18 thoughts on “All of it is really just absurd and seems improbable”

  1. As someone getting blind and heavily relying on being able to read, read, and read (and write, photograph, and just go about a daily life) I see exactly what’s going on here.
    I think that my ‘impairment’ made me somewhat a slightly (v.slightly) better person. You learn to bond (bind, tie) closer and cut (off/away) deeper…. Priorities emerge which weren’t there before. I choose to read David Kanigan and not read something else…. 😉

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    2. Lori, did you just invent that beautiful word? In French you have ‘reposer’ but I wasn’t aware that it exists in the E language too. Although, it should be the contrary situation. French ppl are generally not very reposé but deeply stressed-out (I’m strictly speaking for the Paris agglo. The ‘Province’, the far away, sunny, laid back France is totally wonderful and loveable).

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        1. Lori, I can’t believe it – half an hour after I wrote to you, I watched, totally per chance, a video on a British actor whom I admire, and he uttered the word repose…. just for me 😉 – Isn’t life a funny old thing?

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  4. “What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.” – Tony Robbins

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  6. Again, so apropos! However, I’m experiencing this challenge at the other end of my body. I was afraid of the limitations from my ankle insteps where plates of arthritis developed [?too much dance, martial arts, then tennis??] To make a long saga short, I played an hour and a half of doubles tennis twice this week for the first time in 2 to 3 years…and my feet-ankles don’t hurt! A friend who works as a counselor with the down and out, casually said in a conversation, “just don’t worry about your ankles…” That stuck, along with all the many good regimes I’m following that didn’t move the needle.

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