Once, many years ago, I encountered a quote about writing. This quote, which I am slightly paraphrasing, went something like “The greatest tragedy in writing is the blank page.”
Now I don’t know how true that particular statement is, although I can understand as a writer, the feeling involved in this statement or quote, relating to a lack of productivity or inability to place ideas or thoughts or a story you wish to express into words, or perhaps a struggle with the ability to materialize the imagination upon a blank page. This can feel often like a great abuse or tragedy in the fact that what we want to communicate we fail to, due to a lack effort or laziness, or a sense of apatheticness in not knowing whether the filled page will be viewed by anyone. After all, perhaps the writer or potential writer is thinking, “What’s the point of communicating the ideas, since maybe no one will read them?” thus leaving the blank page to have its own sense of victory. But I think the curious element involved is that the blank page by itself means absolutely nothing, yet we are guided by this quote or prompted to believe that it is a serious abuse to not put down words on this blank page. Truly, this is an very unfortunate and very demoralizing gauge of productivity in this idea of the blank page, however, without considering other elements, the blank page means absolutely nothing, as it is simply a function of productivity or vacuous guideline regarding failure or lack of desire or will to produce.
What we don’t think about or don’t lament in our lives as human beings, is the failure to
use our minds. We fail to develop ourselves internally. We don’t choose to exercise our minds. We don’t choose to develop our brains. We choose to allow them to wallow in mediocrity and simplicity, and we think little of it. The more entertainment you can provide yourself, which distracts from enhancing our minds, the more comfortable someone often is. We are not bothered by the failure to think or the absence of mental development or intelligence, yet we seem perplexed and confused by the blank page idea.
What is more curious also is that we fail to worry about our bodies. The blank page is a conundrum and a curiosity of productivity or lack thereof, but we worry not about spending time on the couch or using our bodies lazily, not developing them, essentially dooming ourselves into lethargy and sloth like behavior the more we don’t choose to develop our physique and to care for our physical well being. But yet no one seems to worry about that either. We are still left with those minor thought about productivity relating to simple tasks. Why do we allow ourselves to not grow and be the best versions of ourselves, but we lament deeply leaving that task uncompleted? We’re perfectly content to go home and sit on the Lazy Boy and enjoy poor nutrition and a diet and steady deevolving of our physique, but we are tortured by the blank page…..
And then there is one of the greatest abuses of all, that failure to develop our emotional intelligence, and to follow our hearts.
Humbly yours,
J