This is another sample daily writing entry, though this takes place between my first period of daily writing (2006-2012) and my current period (March 1st, 2019 forward). Said differently: this was one of the few times I wrote mid-hiatus.
[2016-01-03—00:29]
It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. For one, being able to assume that others would look on you negatively no matter what you did or said was oddly freeing, since there was no point in worrying about what others would think of you if it was a near guarantee that their starting basis was going to be negative. While dislike, distaste, or disdain weren’t certainties – not everyone judged on the same basis or had such intractable views regarding a person’s past acts and present character – it did move matters past the realm of fears or even anxieties and into that of likelihoods. When you were likely to face prejudice or antipathy at the outset and lingering suspicion afterwards, it changed the way you thought about things and the way you prepared. Instead of wondering about ill-regard, you prepared for it. Rather than fearing you might be disliked, you considered how to help others see who you really are. In lieu of defensiveness about your past, you openly acknowledge it – and your wrong – and thereby achieve a self-acceptance that unburdens you from the weight of your own condemnation, and theirs. When the worst, most secret and shameful thing about yourself is already known, not only is there no more need to hide, there’s no impulse to either. Fear is a realm of dread uncertainties, of dire possibilities. When the most dire and dreadful things are already present and known… familiar, there is nothing portentous nor enigmatical to them anymore. It was in this open knowledge, this undesired familiarity that he found himself able to simply inhabit the present with its inherent demands on his attention and involvement. It was an anchored immediacy that he had never been able to achieve in his previous anxious casting about for threatening future possibilities. His general alertness, combined with the previous over preparedness, left him sell situated to any actual, emergent hazards without it being necessary to hold special watch for them, which – paradoxically – freed more mental resources that might be used to respond to or to anticipate and avoid such things altogether. To his surprise, this lack of defensiveness and its concomitant easing of his self-focus enabled him to more easily see the perspective and circumstance of others, making it easier to be patient and reasonable with them as he understood them better.
[01:34]
