New Book Cover

New Book Cover
A Few Words On The Way: Haiku and Short Poems

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Changing Directions

(For thematic reasons, this entry is cross-posted to both my personal homepage and my blog Dude Dealing with Depression)

This is probably one of the biggest decisions I've ever made, but here it is: As of now, my writing, or at least my long-form fiction writing, is on indefinite hiatus. And honestly, I don't expect to pick it up again. As I write this, several weeks after having decided to step away from what I'd seen as my life's dream for the last 36 years, I find my emotions curiously unmixed. While I still enjoy writing poetry and have spent much of my time lately investigating new styles and approaches, it has actually been a long time since fiction gave me any joy in either contemplation or execution. And it may be safe to say that I've spent the last decade, maybe most of the last two decades, following a course I'd charted for myself as a teenager without ever seriously questioning whether it was still what I wanted. Turns out, it's not. In fact it's difficult to state how little interest I have in starting another long fiction project. I mean hell, I barely even read fiction anymore, anyway.

That isn't to say I've given up on writing entirely, and I certainly haven't given up on creative production. As I said, poetry now occupies much of my time, but what my focus has really shifted to is photography. See, I grew up with a camera in my hand, and my first job was working in my stepfather's basement darkroom, processing thousands of black-and-white 8x10's for Toronto's substantial private investigation industry. In fact, I think I still have lung problems because of all the fixer I mixed in that poorly ventilated room, but that's another story. What I'm more concerned with now is the change I've decided to take in life direction, and in a lesser way, the re-configuration of this blog.

In short, it's been quite a year, beginning about 14 months ago with the end of a 22-year relationship and all of the introspection and self-analysis that such an event really ought to inspire. How did I get to be in this position? How close or far am I from what I actually want out of life? Do I really want what I'd thought I'd wanted? If where I'm in isn't where I want to be, or isn't on the horizon given my current road, what changes do I need to make? And on the flip side but no less important, what do I really have to offer in both societal and personal contexts? In short, what do I love?

Well it turns out, I love what I'd long considered my second art--the art I more or less gave up in making the difficult choice, at the age of 18, to pursue literature rather than photography. And while I won't say I chose poorly--my engagement with literature has enriched my life and mind in ways I can scarcely calculate--I will say that it's time to let that long-neglected visual art take the lead in my thinking and making. Accordingly, I've begun posting images for sale, in either hard copy or download, and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future (see links to the right).

So how does a person react to letting go of a dream that has defined his vision of himself for about 70% of his life? Or maybe this is a better question: What exactly was it that I let go? Yet even that question does not allow a simple answer. What have I let go? Let's see ...


  • I've let go of childhood: memories of experiences that I had in books and wanted to pass on to other people but in all honesty no longer experience, myself.
  • I've let go of the echo of a song that was once beautiful but that over the years had come to pulse and drone like a ghost long bored of its own voice.
  • I've let go of fear. This is huge. I've let go of the fear of how friends and family might see me, and more importantly how I might see myself, were I ever to say "I don't expect to be writing any more novels. That guy who thought that way no longer exists."
  • I've let go of most of my ego. Also huge. Over our lives we build up images of ourselves, and we trick ourselves, with our culture's collusion, into thinking of those images as real. But those images are the most basic fictions of all, and as I said above, I've lost interest in fiction. That image, that ego, that narrative, has no more claim on my future or my conscience than I can dupe myself into allowing it.
  • I've let go of what for years has been the heaviest anchor in my life, for which I've sacrificed mental and physical health, time with my family, professional success, and a very large measure of self respect. And why self-respect? Well here's the naked truth: I've known for almost 20 years that I ought to be doing something else, and yet I continued doing this anyway because I was afraid of changing course, and every step of the way, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway. No more.
So now, as I work on my photos and marketing sites, re-discover the joy of artistic creation, and look forward to the possibility of a Fredericton Northside Market stall with the name Wilkie Photography on it, I find myself feeling lighter and more alive than I have in a few too many years. That weight of fear and ego and guilty failure is gone. I'm free. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, the future is full of promise.


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