To Writer’s Block: A Farewell
By: E.G. Soma
Tags: Joy, Writing, Self Improvement, Guilt, Writers Block

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Writer’s Block — a neurotic state inhibiting productive creativity specific to writing

I have been writing on and off for the past seventeen years. I did not know of you until I reached high school. At that point, I was told that you were an unavoidable side effect, but you looked like an insurmountable mountain. I quickly tired of climbing. You made me believe that this pile of rubbish I had written was as good as I would ever get. And so for years, I did not pick up the pen again, choosing instead to pursue the more valuable skill of engineering.

But during the second half of my sophomore year of college, all thanks to divine intervention, I started to write again. I learned that writing is a craft, a craft that I loved and could excel in, and Hope came to help me to fight you. For the next two years, you were a pest — I had my fly swatter and I would beat you back whenever I saw you lurking in the shadows. I would hold onto my professors’ encouragement for dear life. When I had no strength to hold on anymore, I would hide under my covers until you left me alone. But you were clever, and during the stress and upheaval of my final year, you disguised yourself as Wisdom (for at that time I thought I was wise). You convinced me that I had nothing to say, no reason to write, and therefore, no reason to Hope. You teamed up with the lies that haunted me at the time: I was useless, I was shameful, on my own, I had no value. Because of you, them, and my own wrong choices, everything shattered. I stopped writing again for another two years.

There was a brief time that I tried writing after the storms had finally calmed. It was like dusting off an old bike after ten years for a ride through the countryside, or moving back into an empty house you had grown up in. So much had changed; I hardly knew how to begin. Yet I tried, and slowly but surely, I rediscovered a small flame of warmth and love for my art. I wanted it to grow. It was the first time I had ever called myself a writer. But this time, you disguised yourself as Logic. I was not a writer. I had done enough damage to my life with dreams. It was time to set aside the fantasies and take responsibility for my actions. I can’t afford to succumb to delusions again. Writing would not fix anything.

But now, over the course of the past eight months, my life, hopes, thoughts, and perspective have changed. At first, I could hardly recognize that what I was doing was writing. I was just processing, but rather than journal, I placed my emotions onto characters, navigating my hopes and fears through a lens that made it feel less daunting, yet just as real, and possibly more true. Slowly, scars I had ignored began to heal; I began to truly forgive myself. Once I saw it for what it was, I tried writing again. Yet you had not disappeared; you were only sleeping. You reared your ugly head with a vengeance, and this time you felt no need to disguise yourself. You stopped me in my tracks, yet I had gained the resilience and the support of friends and family to fight you. The battle is over now, and I have won, and in the silence after the dust has settled, I finally see you for what you truly are.

Your name is Guilt.

You are the sister of High Expectations and the ugly stepmother of Humility. You steal my imagination, my peace and my love for my art, claiming that it can never be of any value. You take advantage of isolation, feed on insecurities, and your favorite tool is complacency. No matter what I’ve done to try to ignore you, fight you, disown you — you’ve mocked me. For you knew that in the end, you would be able to stop me from writing. You had always kept me from finishing anything. Because somehow, someway, you could always make me feel like it was wrong to write.

But this time, I’ve found Joy.

I enjoy my art, and that has become enough. My creation has value to me, and for the first time in my life, that is all that matters. When I dream of new stories, time flies by. I write as my heart takes me, not my head or my expectations, or anyone else’s. And so I can be critical without letting you debilitate me. I can be honest with myself without letting you put me down. I can ask others for advice and truly accept it as their opinion, rather than Gospel. I can grow without limiting myself. I can make mistakes and own them, and learn from them. I can read without comparing myself to others. Will I become great? No — no one will know my name.

But I have Joy. And so when I write, I grow to become a better me.

Perhaps, in a way, I’ve returned to how I used to write as a child, back when you had no power, before I knew that you existed. Now that I know your name, I don’t have to fight you. I don’t have to ignore you. I’m telling you this so that you understand, so that I understand: there is no room for you when there is Joy overflowing. And so now, I choose to choose Joy; I choose to be a child again.

So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen.

Adieu.