I love
writing. I swear I do. But there are times I stare at the screen and want
to break it. I feel beyond tired, beyond exhausted, beyond empty.
What gives
value to our efforts is time. The more time you spend on an activity, the
more important it becomes for you. The reason you hate giving up on a person or
activity you've spent years on is exactly that; time. Time is what validates
everything, and it cannot be replaced, influenced, bought or brought back. It's
the coin we give in exchange for meaning, the one parameter that cannot be
omitted in the equation of understanding. It's the funniest thing; every
passing moment brings more meaning to our life while making it smaller by that
same amount of time.
Time passes, inevitably, inexorably, mercilessly. The same eyes that stared at me in the mirror years ago stare back at me now, and yet I am not the same person. The only thing that authenticates our existence, makes us mature, that may even make us happy, is the thing that kills us. So I suppose what we should do is use it wisely. Choose what to do with the time we have at our disposal.
Time passes, inevitably, inexorably, mercilessly. The same eyes that stared at me in the mirror years ago stare back at me now, and yet I am not the same person. The only thing that authenticates our existence, makes us mature, that may even make us happy, is the thing that kills us. So I suppose what we should do is use it wisely. Choose what to do with the time we have at our disposal.
There is
enough time for everything.
Everything
happens in the right time.
So billions
of people before me thought, and so billions of people after me will
think.
That they
have time.
Oh, I know,
I know, I am becoming obsessive; I am losing sight of the bigger picture. There
is happiness out there too. Love, friendship, hobbies, art, so many sources of
joy, so many distractions. Right now I could be out, seeking love, or
friendship, or cheap thrills of any kind. Most of the time this translates as
discussing existential questions with people who don't understand what it means
to exist. It's so much fun. I see through all. I see their despair, their need
to be loved, and the wrong ways they try to achieve it. I see through
humans. I see through them and they are dirty, they are desperate, they are
petty and disgusting. Then I feel pity for them, and for the human race as a
whole, and I include myself in it. I see the very foundations of their
misconceptions, the roots of their deprivation, and I still manage to feel pity
because I know what they crave is love. They crave what they never had, or what
they had a twisted ghost of. And so they make the same mistakes again and again
and marvel at the fact the result is the same, they marvel at the fact they get
hurt again and again. And one day, there is no more time to make the same
mistakes. As Buddha said, the problem is, you think you have time. You
don't. You fucking don't.
I am a
hermit by choice, voicing out my deepest thoughts and needs to those few ones I
know won't hurt me. They won't judge me for how weak or silly I may be, the
same way I won't pass judgement on the rest of humanity for how silly and
petty and desperate they are. I am spending my days and nights in front of a
screen, working on a book, making it better, trimming it, polishing it, making it
as good as I can. I could be out, talking to others, listening to the same
questions and the same answers for the umpteenth time. I choose not to. I
choose to walk the streets alone at dusk, talking to flowers and trees instead
of humans, listening to music or the breeze or the chatter of birds instead of
my own kind. Because I know my own kind cannot give me answers. The only answer
is found in the silent toil in front of a screen, rewriting, erasing, perfecting
what I have created.
I don’t expect fame, or money, or even understanding. There is
a story that needs to be told, it demands to be released out there. I struggle
with so many demons to make that happen. I struggle with boredom, CVs,
tiredness, headache, a language that’s not my mother tongue, distractions, and
you wouldn’t have guessed it; time. I struggle with all those demons inside and
outside and word by word I carve my way, sweating with the effort, cursing,
despairing, straining like I am carrying the weight of the world on my
shoulders. I write and erase and re-read and re-write and ache, literally ache
with how long it takes, and how that time will never be returned to me, and it
will be what makes this book important. It’s the one parameter that gives
it meaning. It’s the payment I have to make to make it work. A part of my life,
countless hours, days, months spent on it, and looking back I don’t regret a
single moment. I just wonder what kind of life this is, and what it offers.
I don’t
write to be loved or get laid. I write because there is no other way I’d
rather spend that time. There is nothing else I love more in order to devote
that time to that person or activity. I know that once the book is out
some will love me for it, and some will hate me for it. It makes no difference.
They do not know how many nightfalls found me struggling over a keyboard, how
many dawns found me re-reading the same text with aching eyes. They cannot
comprehend the happiness I experienced while I watched it take form bit by bit.
They can’t understand the frustration I had to overcome, the resolve I had to
show, the pain of not finding the right word or the next occurrence. They can’t guess how many days and nights I spent walking empty streets and
listening to music in order to untangle a part of the plot. They can’t possibly know I
chose that over going out and meeting with friends, or seeking love. And all
these facts are also the reasons they can’t take it from me. They can’t make me
regret, or change my mind, or doubt whether I spent my time wisely. No-one can
make me hate it or disregard it. I know what I did. I know why I did it;
because nothing else would have made me happier. That’s why. And the reason I
wrote it like I did is because I, and not someone else, wrote it.
Next time
you read a book, remember you are bearing witness to how a part of
someone’s life was spent. I wish you to be lucky enough to come across those
books that were written because the writer loved them so much they wouldn’t
have spend that time in a different way. I wish you to find those books that
they’re not the voice of the writer, but all those voices of dusks walked in
silence, and dawns that arrived without any sleep. I wish you to find those
books the writer had no choice but to complete, or go crazy with the voices
inside their head.
I hope my
book will be one of them. I hope my book will be as deep and as quenching for
your thirst as it was for mine.
Time, time,
time.
Will I ever
find the one who will make me forget about writing for a while?
Where are
you?
Maybe
you’ll show up in due time.
Time. Ha ha
ha.
God/dess, I
am so tired. But there is writing to be done.
