Writing Discomfort

Writing can be discomforting. Writing makes you vulnerable. Writing pushes you to search deep within and challenges you to validate your biases. In most cases, writing will be transformative as you uncover the truth, which may or may not conform to your belief system. The process of writing and rewriting instills courage, however briefly.

Writing is sometimes challenging because it wants me to prioritize and stick to a style. I have many things to write about, but when I am in front of a blank screen, my mind is just that, blank. Writing the first word becomes tedious, and my mind feigns "writer's block" as an excuse. Over the years, it has improved because I have trained myself to see writing as re-writing. Re-writing as a concept solidified as a habit due to my mind hardening in the professional context, which I am grateful for. I typically use an icebox to put any of my business writing to revisit later in the week, if not in a couple of hours, depending on the urgency of the matter. The icebox helps me put some distance between my thoughts being poured onto the screen with relatively less friction because my mind knows there is a second chance to fix any logical fallacies or make the message more concise for executive consumption.

Writing sometimes makes me go into utter panic. Panic sets in when you know what to write about, have enough time to write about it, and have just refilled the ink in your favourite stub nib fountain pen, but the method to capture the idea eludes you. I have one such example. I want to write about an experience visiting a dinosaur museum. Our eldest son was unaware of a rotating Dino head as big as himself—the jump scare I witnessed and the subsequent smile on his face is priceless. Unfortunately, I couldn't capture that on a camera, and I promised to write about it in his journal. The struggle of capturing something so simple yet significant haunts me. I have etched that memory in my head, and someday, I will give it a shot to write about it before it starts fading.

Writing can be a lonely endeavour. I used to think about it as an advantage. While writing this, I have my kiddo doing his homework. When I stopped writing, he told me to keep writing as we were both doing the "homework". The context-switching of writing around family is hard, but I am pushing my mind to accept it. The most difficult place to write is in a quiet room with no person in sight. I thought a quiet room would enhance my productivity, but my mind battles distractions. Am I writing to make writing less lonely? I am not sure, but I want to push myself to write anytime, anywhere I can. That makes me adaptable to different situations.