in medias res

The beginning of something paralyzes us. What even is the beginning? The beginning of this website is this first post (that I’m sure nobody will read). But the inception came suddenly when I realized I needed a creative outlet to mitigate post-graduation depression. 

How do you even find the beginning? When did it happen? Think really hard about what happened to create this present moment. Something caused something which caused something else. Like dominoes falling in a row. You’re accessing a now-outdated method of origin searching that is over 1000 years old. Who flicked the first domino? Who was the “first mover?” Aquinas is the guy, look him up. Yeah, and his first mover was God. Try finding the beginning now.

Point is, the beginning is impossible to find. Every story starts somewhere, sure, but what inspired that story happened well before ink ever touched paper (or in contemporary cases, before you opened Google Docs)...

When I graduated from University, I was looking forward to the “beginning” of a new chapter in my life. One without homework, essays, exams. And sure, I got what I wanted. But I also left behind opportunities that I wanted to remain in the middle of for the rest of my life. It’s difficult to flex your creativity and put to use the intellectual tools I polished without a community to do it in.

The beginning I wanted so badly also became the “end” to an intellectual community that isn’t easily replaced. And with some basic meditation on the topic, I realize that is the case for probably every “beginning.” They can’t exist without an end. They’re polar opposites in definition and in form. They alternate whether you want them to or not, and the work never ends. Get hooked on one or the other, and you’ll be whipped around from high to low in perpetuity.

We can certainly wish for things to end, to be over, but something else always takes its place. And of course some things can be terminated. A bad dream can be shaken off, a moment you wish were a photograph will always fade away.

But the beginning that follows? Always informed by the end. Maybe it’s an epiphany that causes you to change your life. Maybe that time in your life is over but the lessons you learned are enough to start a new practice or habit. Or maybe it’s the last straw that begins your road to recovery.

Beginnings and ends are critical to any worthwhile story. Not arguing that. But it’s the middle that counts the most. The middle has all the good stuff in it. It’s the time to practice the things you committed to at the beginning and to create the moments you want before the end. The things you do to change your life and the things you do to shape your future happen in the middle.

And, writers rejoice, it’s easier to find because it’s happening right now.