My first writer's block

As I've researched blogging, and been reading other blogs, the subject of writer's block, or not knowing what to say has come up quite a bit. I find myself all too quickly in this mode, something surprising to someone who (friends and family assert) ALWAYS has something to say.

But it is not a lack of words that stays my typing. It is too many questions. Surely we have always been taught that writing begins with stating your subject, laying out the proofs and support of that subject, and coming to your conclusion. At least, in my sometimes-Enligh major, writer, reporter, editor life, this has been the case. But the most common encouragement I have found touted in Web site after blog after book is: Write anyway.

So here are the questions, questions without answers or solutions:

* The issues are many, and I want to take them all on. If I try to tackle too many things I would like to do, will I be a jack of all trades who does everything, but none of it well? Adversely, if I focus on that one important thing, will I miss all those others that need attention?

* Will the country really be all right? I might cry with elation and hope if Obama is elected, but is hope gaurantee of worthwhile change? If McCain wins, I might cry for a whole different reason, and will we just be looking at four, or eight more years of Bush-ism? I've now spent my entire adult life under a Bush America. Will I be able to give his policy all of my twenties and not move to Canada?

* What on earth is up with Hillary?

* If I bring up Native issues, am I just rehashing what nobody wants to hear about? Will I be one more voice that, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, will spend precious time projecting without a gaurantee of succeeding in anything?

So, questions I have many, answers I have few.

When all else fails, go to a quote of someone wiser:

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

-Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

I look forward to "some distant day."

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