Energy for Writing
January 8 2006
How does a columnist do it? How do they write each day and have some thing worth saying? Perhaps they don't!
My mind chatters on without ceasing. There are some good thoughts most days, along with anguish, anger, puzzlement, and even some fun. But to write a little each day is too hard. I simply feel too tired, or too crowded.
Maybe its part of me recognising I really have very little that is original, or significant, to say. Maybe it is the recognition of a certain hubris that expects someone will ever read this-"no one will read it, why write it? Isn't writing it all down a rather pointless exercise? Is there really any significance in all this scribble?"
I think there is.
Firstly, to write down is to honour- it is saying that our thoughts are worth something. My thoughts deserve some time just like all the time T.V., or work, or family gets. I am worth something!
And publishing to a web is important too. For you, the reader, keep me honest. I know you will read this. It demands, and you demand, a certain honesty. I cannot tell you bullshit- you stop me deluding my self.
But energy is always a problem. Energy is about time and valuing myself. There is ALWAYS something to write about. I am always thinking and feeling. Not knowing what to write tells me these things:
1. I have been too busy to think any thing other than trivia or self-piteous brooding. You help me with this, for your reading presence makes me ashamed to publish today's trivia.
2. I have been too busy, so I really am physically too tired to write.
3. It's not time to write down what I am thinking today. There is more to think.
4. Today I have been re-hashing or clarifying some thoughts already on paper.
5. What I am thinking about is not for publication yet, or even ever- a conversation which was private, perhaps.
The second point is allowable for a while. It is good to work hard. Life and job demand it. But if we are always too tired, and only have trivia, it seems to me we have lost part of life. We have begun to slip back into mere existence.
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