Start
Forgive me. I have wasted so much time. I have spent the last few years waiting for something, a signal, a shotgun “go” to release me from my mark. I have allowed time sidle by, in waiting to finally become ready, to have something tangible or profound to say. In truth, I have waited in vain; have postponed myself for nothing, allowed the machine in my head churning unbelief to go on unchecked, without resistance, my indolence the oil that smoothens the parts. And even now, as I write this, the machine whirs still. There's the temptation to hit backspace till I arrive at the blank page, unsullied by whatever this is I'm rambling about. But if there's anything I learnt from the previous year, it is this: there will never be a “perfect” moment to begin anything. I could as well wait a month longer to have the absolutely captivating words, or a couple more years to gather enough knowledge about the craft and business of writing, and I'd still not feel confident enough in my ability. I could as well live and die waiting. And nothing.
I guess it's human nature to always seek perfection, to abhor errors. But errors, I am well aware, are at the very foundation of any work that's considered perfect. Yet, even my possession of this knowledge wasn't sufficient to pull me out of the depths of inertia. Enter ego. I was enslaved by this desire to always platform an unblemished personality; held on to a faultless ideal, an imperative need to not be associated with anything as regards the art, or my work in whatever medium or field, that points to mediocrity, unintentionality, or unpreparedness. And while these aren't particularly harmful ideals to cling to (in fact, I do deem them very necessary), it was the manner in which I entrusted myself and my work to them that turned them not into effective arsenal, but weapons fashioned against my creative (inner) life. Enter doubt. I lost that ability to write from a place of curiosity, that satisfaction that accompanied building sprawling worlds and characters from some tender place in my chest.
When I picked up this writing thing as a lonesome teenager, it took so much work and carefulness to construct that part of myself that enjoyed the slow, winding process of crafting a story. Took years of peeling and self-flagellation to rid myself of the initial doubt that came with calling myself a writer on Facebook. And now, out of carefreeness, or rather, an over-carefulness, I could sense that identity I'd so lovingly built giving way to disarray. Every word I wrote was as if a lie, every new sentence sprouted teeth that ugly-laughed in my face, called me a fraud till I abandoned the page in fear and rage. Nothing felt right. I abandoned drafts in anger, tore down completed works because they never felt good enough. And because this inner life feeds my outer life, the disarray spilled and spread till I was drenched with self-loathing. My self-esteem tanked. I lagged behind in other commitments, I disappointed several people who had some semblance of faith in me, wallowed deep in bad habits. And in my self-loathing, I immersed myself in a lake of false comfort where no one had any expectations of me, where I had zero expectations of myself. I was bound by no obligation to create anything of worth. I licked my sores and languished in a misery masked by foolish indifference.
But I possess no swimming skill whatsoever, and was soon at the cusp of drowning — that slice of moment between lucidity and insanity when your brain is deprived of oxygen and all your cells begin to revolt. I had no intentions of dying. I needed to quit fooling and attempt to save myself. I turned to books knowing nothing else. And it became increasingly clear to me James Baldwin's famed interview response: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was reading books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.”
What I had lacked was an openness to failure and the courage to pick up my life. Which was stupid anyway, because nobody was going to pick up my life for me. The cringe machine ran noisily, I couldn't figure out a way to permanently stop it. But they say cringe is the cost of entry. And in an interview last year I'd harped about how this openness to failure/cringe was essential to writing well, writing at all. Shame I couldn't follow my own advice.
“You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
— Octavia Butler
A little seed
Through reading I discovered this essay by Temim Fruchter and it offered me a safe landing. In it she writes: “A requirement of writing well is the capacity to trust yourself. Perhaps not wholly, and perhaps not even very much at all. But in order to successfully write a story, you need to possess enough self-trust to believe yourself capable of concocting a universe of characters and situations from nothing, or perhaps from a very small seed.”
I return to this passage time and again. I mutter it to myself absentmindedly, and I might end up framing it. I felt so seen by it, by Fruchter's own story. It put into perspective something I'd been thinking for the longest time, about to whom I owe primary obligation as a writer. Is it to myself, or the public who may read me? And I believe a writer's primary duty is to the work, and by extension to himself, the vessel through which worlds and seeds are born. If, while it is necessary and encouraging, the search for an external validation, or the pressure to pander to outside influences corrupt the vessel, then the seed becomes infected by the writer's ambition. And if, out of fear or shame or embarrassment, the writer chooses to not bring forth the seed, then that is a disservice most unforgivable.
Nadra Mabrouk wrote in The Condition: “If there is a seed in your palm, you must bend to the soil and plant it.”
And that brings me to why I'm writing this. There is a little seed in my hand. And here, on this soil, I am planting it. This is your invitation to be my witness. I am reclaiming my life, I am writing again, despite the unbelief machine going in the background. Despite the limitations that exist in my mind. My fears are useless. I am choosing the work. I am facing the page, again, a daunting challenge. But rather that than be a cemetery of underutilized potentials.
Solutions to world problems can emanate from the ink that goes out of your pen..
Keep it up brother.
I am grateful for your existence. For your writing. For the truth in this piece; for its message of courage.