ENTTÄUSCHUNG (Disappoinment)
These past few months, I have been unable to write. I have tried and tried but writer’s block has constantly foiled my efforts. My thoughts roam and I’m unable to streamline them into meaningful sentences. I put my pen to paper but the ink stutters out a few words and then comes to a sickening halt. I am left feeling incomplete and incompetent. Despair and disappoinment wash over me. I am left feeling small and asking my subconscious questions that it is unable to answer.
What do you write when you have so much to say but words elude you? Do you simply proceed to talk about how you can’t talk or force the words to come into the forefronts of your mind? Do you place your fingers against the keys and will them to type - to write those words that your mind remains unable to brew?
Do you read pieces by other people with the hope that they’ll spur the words to come rushing out of you or do you simply play music while hoping that the melody wakes up the words laying dormant in you?
Many say writing is a gift, I say it’s more than that. It’s a curse too - a two-edged sword which never fails to demand its pound of flesh from those who wield it. I say this because to write, you need words - not flimsy, meaningless words, you need words that strike a cord when read. To brew these words, your mind becomes a sacrificial lamb to your own thoughts. You look on the inside and learn truths that hurt and then you begin to write - Writing never fails to demand its pound of flesh!
So what do you do after learning such painful truths? How do you react after the discovery of unwanted truths? Do you allow your thoughts to simmer into words or expunge them from your mind - perhaps through activity or alcohol?
I, like every other coward on the globe, often drown out these thoughts but sometimes, I manage to gather up enough courage to document them and they cut deeper into my soul with every stroke of the pen and every clack of my keyboard - Writing never fails to demand its pound of flesh!
Ironically, I enjoy the pain. In fact, I get high off it. The heady feeling that accompanies me when I have just finished writing a piece cannot be easily described. It is like the smell of dry loose earth after rainfall. It is like a burst of flavour in my mouth.
Again, I am foiled by my own mind. The words have frozen to a halt at my fingertips as I type and I can no longer go on. I must stop writing now and hope that I can pick up here some time soon. Perhaps I ought to read this “piece?” and cheer up some — it is at least a better result than I have gotten in the last few months but I am left feeling like a failure. I am appalled that the only piece I have been able to write is about my inability to write. What a cruel irony!
