beyond the curtains of rooms.

being a writer is not enough

It’s not enough just to put words down on paper, or onto a document. It’s not enough just to exist between the pages. You have to truly live. Only by living can you begin to walk in greatness. To strut the path of self-recognition. To spiritually align yourself, and march forward through the sludge, even when the effort goes unnoticed by humanity. Especially if it goes unnoticed by humanity. The holiest of saints will never be known to the ears of people. Never be spoken by the tongues of the populace. 

Why waste so much time concerning yourself with the opinions of others, or concerning yourself with trends, with what’s popular and not popular, and what is ok to do and say and write about and what is considered taboo or forbidden, when there is an entire world to be had by you — a grand arrival of yourself to be unraveled thread by thread from this incredible tapestry of life: a thing that will cradle you, abandon you, love you (if you let it), haunt you, enlighten you, and eventually kill you. 

For that story, you are the only author. But It is not a feat which takes place solely behind the safety of curtains of the windows of rooms, though you will want to retreat there, and often you will. It is not a narrative written with logic or wit or grammar or syntax — you are free of those constraints. It is an act in which you forgo the need of literary tools, because you become the thing you’re trying to create.

It is an act in which you lose yourself, like dissolving into a good book. And always, from books you will gain satisfaction. But, to those who have marked themselves for greatness, if you have not lived sufficiently, if you have not sometimes plunged blindly into the forest, to lick the tongue of the snake, to kiss the leaves of flowers, there will be a nagging at your soul. Go! Go! Go!, it will tell you — and you might not know where it leads, you might get lost along the way (you will), but you must follow it. You must trust this intuition. 

And often, more times than not, you will crawl back in defeat. But your books will still be there. The curtains in your room will still cover the harsh sunlight. And you’ll have taken on new colors and shades you hadn’t seen before. And if your head is intact, you’ll want to put them down on paper, or onto a document. And it will be a beautiful thing, for you will have truly lived. 

And if you come back to your room not in defeat, but in victory, you won’t stay in that room for long. You’ll be thirsty for the world. For its people. For its many places and venues of enchantment, and even the ones of disenchantment, until the stomach turns and the sickness begins anew.

And in your reflection, though sometimes it was hard to recover, it was always worth it, you’ll tell yourself. And though the world might never know what you’ve accomplished, you will know. And you will smile, having been a beautiful drop of paint on the infinite canvas, instead of lying dried out and colorless on the palette. You’ll have contributed to something greater, never succumbing to the sickness from fear, but handing yourself over to it without regret.

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Of course, the opposite can be true too: living too much, writing too little. Symmetry is vital.

“I was so in love with the idea of being a writer that I scarcely wrote. The amount of physical energy I possessed was unbelievable. I wore myself out in preparation. It was impossible for me to sit down quietly and just turn on the flow; I was dancing inside. I wanted to describe the world I knew and be in it at the same time.”

— Henry Miller