White Paper, Black Letters: How to Find Time to Write

On writing… A white page. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing to fill it with black letters, lining up endlessly. And there is so much I want to put into those letters that shape words…

Words that shape a swarm of thoughts buzzing around my head and screaming to get out.

For the world to see them, for them to know they didn’t buzz in vain in that strange space, when they deserve to breathe.

But sometimes it is so hard to find the right words, the right way to turn a thought into meaning.

Sometimes the reason is a lack of ideas. Sometimes too many ideas, so that none of them can crystallise clearly and become dominant enough to rise to the surface and take the lead.

But as long as my fingers dance across the keyboard, there is hope.

Hope that the fog in my head will clear, and quickly enough, because look, soon it’s time to fold the screen down onto the keyboard and get on with the rest of the day, which doesn’t ask whether you would rather stay right here, among the black letters, the white page and the black-and-white keys of the laptop.

Reality is so loud then that it screams from every side.

Work, family, school!

Work, hello!

And the laundry won’t pick itself up and fold itself either.

Then I envy.

I envy all those writers who, centuries ago, could devote all the time in the world to just that: shaping their thoughts into meaningful wholes that still carry meaning today.

Or is that just my fantasy, idealising distant times and people we don’t know?

Yes, it’s easier to imagine them bent over a desk or a typewriter, with coffee or something stronger beside their papers, lost in thoughts that swarm and want to get out, there, onto that page.

It’s easier to idealise them and hope that you, too, will one day reach exactly that: the writer’s utopia, undisturbed by any outside factors.

Undisturbed by life.

Art for art’s sake.

But is that even life?

Would it have the same charm as this, now, because now I know how to treasure every minute spent in front of the screen, every minute I have stolen from everyday life just for myself and my words.

Probably not.

But what is a person without imagination and longing for what never was and never will be, and yet still hopelessly hopes and strives for it? Empty?

Yes, definitely. Empty.

How do you balance living here and now, truly living, not just surviving, and still create something that will make some new kids wonder, a century and a half from now, how you managed to set aside all the time in the world to devote yourself to your passion, to what you were born for, to what has always pulled you, and that for a long time you didn’t know how to get out of yourself.

It’s a privilege to think about it, I know.

It’s a privilege to have the time to worry those worries.

And you feel grateful, but it doesn’t ease the pain you feel.

Because it is you who feels it, everything you are and everything you would like to be. Everything you aren’t and wouldn’t want to become. All of that is you, and that is exactly what sets you apart from some other self, what pulls you away from it or brings you closer.

And it’s no use that time stands still while you’re here, when real time races on and hangs over your head like a noose, because it won’t wait.

And yet you love that life, because you built it yourself. Because you made it this way for yourself, so that you could enjoy it.

And so on, endlessly…

Contentment and doubt take turns day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

I wonder whether, the moment you close your eyes for good, that circle stops existing and you finally arrive at the destination where you were always meant to be, or whether it takes on a different shape.

I don’t know, and even when I find out, I won’t be able to tell you, because you won’t hear me then.