Writing in Present Tense

It has been such a long time since I have written anything (not just a blog post) that I am not only unsure of where to begin but I am doubly unsure of the why behind this post. Truly, I lack all knowledge of why today, of all the days full of writing inactivity, I choose to actually put some words down to some unexplained and definitely useless end.

It is not entirely true that I have not written anything; I have produced a considerable amount of words that contributed to all my school essays and recently also to my senior thesis. But my relationship to writing has changed very dramatically in the past five years. I used to be excited about writing, crave it even and always hope for the best in my thoughts as they became still and naked in writing. Now, I dread the moment when I have to finally sit down and write my essay (the only writing I do and only because I would have never graduated without it). Moreover, I am afraid of writing. I no longer feel good enough to even dare think of transforming raw thoughts into immaculate expressions, and along this path I sometimes feel like there is no hope in my writing, in any writing, or in words themselves.

Do you know the feeling when you are too concerned about the quality of your creation to the point that such creation becomes impossible, precisely unthinkable? As children, we used to draw and sing and write and act just to express ourselves, anything, but now we are too worried if this expression, or even this self, is good enough for the world. It doesn't really stop us from creative thought, but it does stop us from breathing an air of life into this thought. We let it sit and we watch as it ripens and without a care, without a single desire to share it, we let it spoil and turn into rotten mush that only attracts flies and disgust. And after that, only to make the culmination final, we let ourselves to be seen singularly through this image. It is our self that has just died and again and again.

I think that at this moment in my life I am sufficiently bored, depressed, stagnant, lifeless... In short, I have a great case of ennui... that I am not really afraid of writing anymore. There is not much to lose. The principle of overturning my flesh first to a damnable carcass, then to a damnable image, has lost its grip on my shoulder. The one thing I'd like to know by the end of this summer is why it is possible to feel this way.

As an individual, I have been very successful in those past five years in which you had not heard from me. In retrospect, my success has been apparent on every imaginable level: I have become a stronger individual, a better citizen, a kinder friend, a more educated human being, a more conscious observer, a more passionate advocator, and a humbler man. It is not even that I do not have any prospects for I am very comfortably set for the near future and nothing is really stopping me to explore the world, to daydream, and to act.

So really, I ask, why am I trapped and why don't I do anything? Anything.