these are my favourite pieces of writing from three drafts which i’ve worked on between june of last year and january of this one. don’t expect very much cohesion between sections.
one
It took me 4 days to write my first post. What I wrote in my first post wasn’t written in 4 days. It took 4 days to type it out, sure, but it was written over my lifetime. I got praise for it. A lot more than I expected. I didn’t expect this many people to be interested, to read through, to take the time to subscribe and send me personal messages appreciating my writing.
But now I stand in front of a wall. A wall that only grew larger with every message I got. It appears colossal before me. There is no way past, only one over. I have to climb this wall.
I don’t have writer’s block. That’s a difficult truth to come face-to-face with. I convinced myself I did and now I’ve to undo the veil that I created for my comfort. It’s easier to have writer’s block than the pressure of disappointment.
It’s incapacitating, weirdly. Very few will understand, I’m not sure I do. I want to write, but nothing I write is good enough. This paragraph has been through 5 complete deletions already. I’m the only one who finds the last 5 versions bad. No one else has even seen them. No one else told me to rewrite, or to edit. I just felt it.
I haven’t heard very many writers speak about this- an irrational disliking of your own writing. It definitely exists. I hold my writing to standards I wouldn’t hold anyone else’s. I know I’m not as proficient, or as experienced, yet I treat my work harsher than their’s.
I don’t have writer’s block. Publisher’s block, maybe.
There’s always a constant need to outdo oneself. Constant and all-consuming. Oftentimes one shies away from aiming too high, in the fear of reaching the summit, with nowhere higher to go. So you set small achievable goals for yourself. Bit by bit we build ourselves up, never truly pushing our boundaries, and never truly setlling for mediocrity either. But who’s looking? In the unending goal of being better, who has the time to look at the rest of the field? Are you competing with everyone else, or yourself? Are you competing with me?
I didn’t write for 4 months. I wrote in June, in November and again now in February. I have enough to write about, enough to put out. Anecdotes, feelings, ideas, I have too many. What I don’t have is purpose.
I have no great stories to share, no emotions others relate to. My struggles are so inherently not unique that it would be a waste of time trying to differentiate myself. I’m like you, tweaked a bit here and there, sure, but more like you than unlike you. I have things to write but nothing to write for. Not no one, mind you. Nothing.
two
A swimming pool getting deeper as it goes along- infinite in all aspects. Walls line opposite sides, too high to climb, but with railings to grab onto when you can’t swim any longer.
Stand on the diving board. It’s your last chance to walk back down to earth. Jump and you subject yourself to the misery of a journey that never ends. You know this. It’s pain personified. You will never be able to turn around. Never get around to that book, that movie, that game. Never be able to tell her you love her smile, never tell anyone why they won’t see you anymore.
Running away. But it isn’t running away. Running’s a choice, this isn’t. If you jump in, no one could ever blame you. Who cares about the rest of the world.
Splash. Goodbye. It’s a slow death. Your legs will slow. You will grab onto the railing. You will rest and you will continue. But you will tire. Your mind will bore, your muscles, nerves and sinew giving up. You will age. You won’t make it to peace. You will drown.
Your memory will falter. You will tell yourself the despair ends in a hundred metres. Another hundred metres. You’ll distract yourself the for next hundred by asking if you’ve really gone a hundred yet. You can’t lie to your heart. You try.
Either you’ll choose it yourself, or it’ll be chosen for you, but you will drown. The safety of the railing appearing like boredom. You’ll regret diving.
None of it will matter. Your journey won’t matter. You won’t. You lost your identity in trying to be something greater than it. It’s a slow death. Even if you live.
Hyperfixation isn’t really a word. You’ll still hear it a lot. It’s used incorrectly more than correctly.
Fixation (/fɪkˈseɪ.ʃən/) is usually a better term. I use obsession (/əbˈseʃ.ən/), because I’m a pretentious literature type. One of the prerequisites to being interested in literature is the unnecessary need to love romanticisation. Romanticise everything. Anything you can think of- flowers, rain, summers, day, wine, night, winters, hatred, anything.
Just don’t get attached. Anything but attachment.
three
Benches are socialist.
In a global system where ownership is might, benches are the last public stalwarts of a dream of days past. In our neoliberal, capitalist, has-wet-dreams-about-money world, where everyone tries to be Patrick Bateman and Andrew Tate, benches offer a rare and soothing sight of relief to those who need it the most— the rest of us.
Property means everything today. The more you own, the more you earn, the more you buy and the vicious cycle continues. But the point is never to own, is it? The point is always to exclude. You can exclude more because you own more, exclude better because you own better? Think of pretentious high fashion, of supreme. Think of the instgram reels driven “billionaire at 21” lifestyle with fancy cars and big houses. Think of iPhones, Macs, the whole ecosystem— the list goes on.
All of these items are meant to provide their owners with a special gratification that doesn’t stem from utility. If all pride did come from utility, there would be a group of Fiat owners claiming their car is better than McLaren’s because it has better mileage.
But there isn’t. Because owning doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t the only one owning. Exclusivity drives demand. But then there’s benches.
Benches are, by definition, non-excludable goods (if you listen closely enough, you can hear IB econ students rejoicing, having finally found some usage for their favourite HL subject.) The richest can own as much land in the world as they’d like, but a bench will always serve the people who need it most. The presence of a bench makes any space, as artificially exclusive as it may be, appear welcoming, if only just for a moment. The existence of a bench makes a space open to all.
Benches are made for the people society hires to make benches. The ‘haves’ in society don’t need benches. They have apartments, penthouses and manors to more comfortabaly spend their time in. It’s the ‘have-nots’ who derive happiness from benches. Marx’s proletariat. Occupy Wall Street’s 99%. Us. Benches are, in essence, about self-sustenance; not for an individual, but for the class. Tell me, honestly, do you know who owns a bench?
“People own the benches they donate.” Sure, but a bench that someone pays for is a testament to belief in socialist values, is it not? A usage of scarcely available and much desired resources (money, wood, metal, etc.) used not for personal gain but public benefit? Societal benefit? Benefit of the commune, even?
Benches spit in the face of the world order that continues to dictate what we buy, wear, drive, eat and even think. All because you can’t stop anybody from sitting on a bench.
This post should explain why I’m not a blogger. Thanks for reading.
i can't lie, this is my most favourite piece I've read this month or even year.
All this post explains is why you should write more