The writer and the blank page.
An endless battle that every writer hopes to conquer but falls short most of the time. Every morning the writer wakes up, does odd rituals to seek the blessings of the muse and sits down at the ergonomically designed work desk only to stare at the blank page. Old wounds stir, fear grips, and both ends gear up to put on a great fight.
The writer gets the jitters, wants to be one step ahead and makes the first move in haste to fill up the blank page. To write something, anything. As the fingers fire away at the keyboard, self-doubt rears its ugly little head. Just as the writer felt they were one up the blank page, the doubt emerges to knock them down a few inches. What if the words filling up the blank pages are not good enough?
It’s every writer’s worst nightmare and biggest conundrum to decide what’s worse – an empty page or a shi**y draft in an attempt to articulate something. Most days the blank page wins, some days the shi**y draft wins, and on a few rare days those poor drafts add up to something meaningful.
I’ve spent many a day analysing these dramas playing out in my head over the last few years, obviously when I was supposed to be writing. But what I observed was a psychological tug of war that goes beyond the craft of writing, it is a phenomenon that occurs across aspects of life. The side we choose to fall on – empty page or shi**y draft decides our pace of growth.
You see ego chooses the empty page, but evolution needs the shi**y draft.
The delicately crafted ego in all our lives knows its fragility and takes every precaution to ensure its weakness is not exposed. This act of the ego in the psyche is what forces the writer to leave the blank page empty, the painter to leave the canvas untouched, and the singer to not make a sound. The ego cannot stand the intense vulnerability of starting something new, pursuing something deeper, or entertaining the possibility of mistakes and poor attempts. Ego expects perfection before, during, and after the act. So, it deceives us by making the blank page more threatening than it is, so we stick to our comfort zones, to things we know we do well, to never take risks.
But this is the zone of stagnation
Sure you won’t be at risk, but there’s no growth happening as well. Our actions become repetitive, we lose the vigour or sharpness in life because we are doing the same things over and over again. We are safe, but life starts to feel like a chore.
It’s the same old ships that are safe in the harbour but that’s not what it’s built for. We are here to create, to bring our unique signature to everything we do. Instead, we succumb to the cunning ways of ego and choose to play it safe. But there’s no zest, no vitality in playing the game of life safe.
Be it the creative process or life, both require us to take some chances. For evolution requires us to begin somewhere, make mistakes, learn from them, and have the courage to try again. Evolution needs that shi**y first draft. Or however many drafts it takes to get it right.
To expect ourselves to get it right on the first attempt is unreasonable and unlikely. Such expectations overwhelm us from ever starting. To create something meaningful in art or life, we need to allow ourselves to fail. We need to permit ourselves to make mistakes and have the grit to persevere again and again till we reach our destination. We might go astray, and take a few wrong turns and detours, but we learn through them all. If we are awake and alert.
So, this is my way of not letting the ego win. Not today. The ego is a fierce warrior and won’t go down quietly. But fight we must, to allow evolution to happen.
Write those sh**y drafts, create art that’s not a masterpiece, follow your heart and take those chances. We may or may not reach the destination, but the journey is rewarding in itself. To choose ourselves and our gifts even once in a lifetime is an act of bravery worth celebrating.