Dear Solitude
Funny
how I read this article exactly at the moment when
I’ve been puzzling over my inability to write for days, even if I never used to
believe in “writer’s block” as far as journalism writing is concerned.
Long ago, my editor and I had agreed, as a matter of principle, that we, journalists
could not afford a block, an ailment commonly afflicting creative writers;
because for us, it’s either we have the story or we do not have it, and that
it’s only the absence or incompleteness of facts that could prevent us from
writing it. That’s what I used to think before but life is not really
that simple. Something has been preventing me from writing these days and I
realized it’s not just the absence of facts. I could not bring myself to write because
a huge part of me was on strike; and I call this part of me, my writing djinn.
It was on strike because I failed to listen to its demand for a long, long
time; and for such a long time, I have deprived it of its most basic need: the
full and blossoming reading life and delightful solitude. I’ve been jumping
from one place to another, soaking myself with the problems of the world, that
the djinn is going mad at not being able to read at least four or five books
continuously for hours, in total uninterrupted silence. For the djinn, I must
say, is an artist, with a well-developed inner life and a will of its own. The
djinn it is who fuels my writing. The sooner I recognize this, the better
for both of us. I could no longer bring myself to write even if the
materials I was supposed to write were already right before me. The djinn
had the anger of Ceres, the anger that prevented the grass from growing, the
anger that killed all creativity, it was the anger that practically stopped all
life on earth. Ceres is the harvest goddess whose daughter Proserpine was
abducted by Pluto. Her anger had caused the plants to wilt. The anger came that
part of me that had supplied the spirit that fueled my journalism throughout
these years. I have neglected that part of me. And now, it is demanding
attention. It is demanding solitude. It is going on strike. It is
my only lifeforce, the springboard from which all my writings come from.
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