Too Much Noise

I had a weird feeling the other day -- like the reaching of a limit. Some of the things I had written

Shel Silverstein

this week got attention, all at once (a lot by my standards, not by James Patterson's, of course), and a lot of issues were coming at me on a personal and professional level and I felt a little like I was being surrounded zombies had forced me into an alley with one of those caged lights swinging overhead. I felt the beginnings of a kind of mild panic.

I've been busy before. I have been overwhelmed before. But this was different, especially on the writing end. You spend time trying to develop an audience, so, when they respond, you figure it will be a reward -- and, it is, usually, but, it felt like a line had been crossed, all of a sudden. Coupled with the whole busy life thing, I guess it the "mild panic" sort of came in like a Ninja before I knew it.

(No -- this doesn't mean I want you to stop commenting on my posts. Seriously.)

It's a lesson, though. One from which I should be able to extrapolate some wisdom about my future self. I won't bore you with my conclusions.

Part of the panic was a metaphoric and literal noise issue. I find that when I cut some of the literal noise, that much of the metaphoric cacophony lessens, so I have been driving with the radio off. A half hour to and from work, no radio; no music. Decompression, if you will.

For me, it is like putting my brain in a hot tub with a nice sunset view. Sometimes we need to retreat, I guess. But I think it is more than that for me. I need to clean out some of the clutter lying in the path of my days. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic.