Why Do I Keep Doing Things That Terrify Me?

I’m directing a short film.
I’m starting a weekly Substack newsletter.
There’s a 90% chance that by the end of the day I will sign up for a class that will force me to pitch paid publications.

All of these things have been on my to-do list for awhile, but I have not done them.
But right now I’m feeling a desire to pull the trigger on these things. This desire has unknown origins, but it is not unfamiliar. It is a desire that pokes its head up very intermittently and causes present-me to set events and projects in motion that future-me will then have to navigate and carry out long after the desire to do so has beyond diminished and she is reduced to a frenzied ball of “Oh-God-just-let-me-get-through-this-and-I-will-never-put-us-in-this-position again.”

During the pandemic I wrote an article for Emry’s Journal that described this process in some detail. It all holds true.

More on this topic in coming days.