Periods of time gone by, I only find myself now in the right place and time and most importantly in the position of ability to …write.
It’s hard to specify what makes it possible for me to write. What are the necessary factors that play a part in the proces of writing.
First of all, a certain sense of peace and rest, calmth and emptiness. Creativity and inspiration get killed by an overflow of information. Both visual as auditive noise can murder the flow of a thinker, a writer. Anything breaking the chain of concentration has to be diminished and eliminated in order to keep steady a stable progress.
It often occurs that one finds him- or herself in the right place and time and even ability to write a piece. The concentration flow has been sacredly kept save and isolated from any interference or ‘contra flow’. The creativity and inspiration seem close at hand, but somehow remain unreachable. Writers call it ‘writersblock’, although this term can also refer to not having any creativity or inspiration or whatsoever at all. I call this ‘flow lock’. All the right features are in place, the mental space filled with nothing but emptiness, calmth covers the senses. A river of creative cognition and intellectual inspiration is running through the mind rapidly. Until it hits a barrier, a large iron watergate. You can feel the creativity and inspiration bubble up and burst into the gate. But there seems no way to let it loose. Like a mime player, in an imaginary box. An enraged lion in a golden cage. A dancer whose legs got amputated. It feels like a handicap, a disability. Failure.
Failure means, making an attempt that turns out to be or become unsuccesful. Failure does not have to be taken negatively. Failure can be seen as the road to success: after falling off your bike a hundred times, the hundred-and-first time you manage to stay on it! Failure can also be seen as a process of learning: the experience you gain through the many failures you make, can be or become useful for other purposes. Generally, people link failure to a feeling of guilt. They somehow feel bad because they weren’t succesful. They thought they should or could have done better.
I think this sad ‘shoulda coulda woulda’ story is nothing but an excuse to the easy way out. Failure is the first step towards success. Without failure, success would not exist as it would not be distinguised as such. Without failure, every attempt, every action, every plan would be a success, because failure would simply not exist. And to be honest, not every attempt, action and plan is worth a success. Failure is necessary to learn, to grow, to be humble and greatful, to stay grounded and keep relativating. Seeing things in the right order and perspective clears the road to success. Practising and improving yourself continuously is the one purpose of failure.
Not being able to write, makes me able to write. The imaginary box, the golden cage, the iron gates and the amputated legs make me search myself thouroughly. It makes me investigate my mental skills, put them to the test and stretch their limits. The disability makes me ambitious. Ambitious to be able, be stable, be capable of doing what I want. Putting my creativity to product, injecting my inspiration into a project. Making dreams come to life, by keeping dreams alive inside. Reality begins and ends in the mind.
One can mentally kill or give birth to, neglect or nurse, destroy and destruct or enjoy and conduct any thing. And any thing mentally can be put to reality, through writing alone. Writing makes any idea, any concept, any lingering figment or thought a concrete thing. To read or learn, wonder about or teach. Language by itself, is the key to reality. And the writer…
The writer is the goldsmith that forged the key.