The One Who Loves

If I’m completely honest, for as long as I’ve been aware of it, I haven’t been a fan of the phrase “self-love.” Its intentions were obviously good, but it too often conjured in me images of spa weekends and boxes of chocolate truffles and binge-watching a Netflix series, all of which are fine, but not anything to which I aspire. Also, love to me always seemed more outward-facing. I loved a story or a person or an experience. I felt the love within me, but largely, I thought, as a consequence of what I perceived and appreciated.

However, if writing has taught me anything, it’s that the best way to really understand something is to see it against its opposite, which, in this case, would be self-hate. Unfortunately, I’m plenty familiar with this practice, and there is literally nothing worse. The world is big, and full of so much and so many, but I am and will always be the only portal through which I know it. I go to bed with myself and wake up with myself, walk with myself and sit with myself. My own company, my history and desires, are inescapable. To hate them is to hate everything, to find pleasure and joy in nothing.

Sometimes, when I’ve been very down, I’ve found myself drawn to the page to sing my blues. Do I just want to complain? At first, perhaps. Except there’s no reason to complain unless you can imagine, or remember, or crave something better, and before long it’s that something better I’m describing. You can’t describe something unless you can first see it, feel it, and know it. And where is it being seen and felt and known? What is the very source of this better thing?

I often feel that I lose track of myself when I write, but it’s maybe more accurate to say I connect to my truest self. This inner artist just wants to love and create and appreciate everything, including my other self, the one who bangs around the world and scrolls on his phone and thinks he should practice his guitar more often. I don’t really hate anything or anyone, but I do lose track of the one who loves. Fortunately, he’s never very far.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com