Sometimes I feel like words are barely enough. And yet sometimes words are everything. In fact, words can turn out to be one’s salvation, if you allow them to to save you.
And not only words but music too and movies, photography, and any other kind of art. I don’t have the words to explain why this is so, but I know it in my gut. I know it intuitively. That sometimes we are saved by beautiful things and it doesn’t even matter why or how.
Words.
First there are the words written by other people. Novels, poetry, articles on the internet, a fucking blog post. Any of these can save or change a life. Any of this can be a match struck in a dark night, just when you most need it.
Then there are the words you write. If you allow yourself to write honestly, to write from your soul (if you believe in such a thing), then writing can be salvation too, no matter how inept you are at it. It doesn’t matter if the words you write are ever only seen by yourself. It doesn’t matter if you only ever write in your private diaries. The point is to write, to allow the darkness in you to transform itself into understanding. Because to write is to come to a little more understanding of yourself, and a little understanding goes a long way.
There are many times when I sit before a blank page and believe one hundred percent in the thought in my head that goes, “You have nothing to write about”. On days when I have no resolve I simply give up, so another day goes by without me writing. But on some days I sit before the blank page long enough to force the words out of me, and then I realise that I have endless things to write about, and that my thoughts are often lying to me about what I can and cannot do.
Reading and writing can transform your suffering. I believe that with my entire heart. So I continue to read… and I continue to write.
Listening to: Nick Drake.