An Appalling Tyranny
There’s a tyranny associated with an empty page. A kind of dictatorship, waiting to castigate the unwary.
“FOR GOD’S SAKE - Write something interesting, or stop wasting my time.”
There is no comeback from that. No petulant or justifiable rebuke is possible. It is what it is. An empty page isn’t interesting. An empty page put in front of anyone is a void implying a profound accusation, and if you let it, it will mock you.
*guffaws* “HA! Not only do you have nothing interesting to say, you are a coward as well…”
But there really is something profoundly terrifying in the manufacture of content to fill an empty page. Manufacturing content is something infinitely humiliating. It’s like suddenly realising you are naked in the midst of a busy supermarket and everyone is staring. Or dreaming you’ve just been sentenced to life and are being dragged off to jail.
It was after such dreams I would wake up startled and afraid.
“But it’s just a dream…”
Yes, of course. Just a dream, but such dreams would leave a lingering fear made all the more irrational by the dark and the quiet.
*whisper* “shhh, go to back sleep…”
It’s nice that we think a hushed reassurance will keep away the devil.
Some of us are compelled by arrogance to write, parading our egos as substitutes for intellect and insight. Some of us are tortured to write, whinging and whining our way through an opinion, or worse distorting a story to fit the anguished mood. Some seek to write the truth, some are employed to fabricate the truth. But most just try and fill the void.
An empty page is an appalling tyranny.
But there really is something profoundly terrifying in the manufacture of content to fill an empty page. Manufacturing content is something infinitely humiliating. It’s like suddenly realising you are naked in the midst of a busy supermarket and everyone is staring. Or dreaming you’ve just been sentenced to life and are being dragged off to jail.
It was after such dreams I would wake up startled and afraid.
“But it’s just a dream…”
Yes, of course. Just a dream, but such dreams would leave a lingering fear made all the more irrational by the dark and the quiet.
*whisper* “shhh, go to back sleep…”
It’s nice that we think a hushed reassurance will keep away the devil.
Some of us are compelled by arrogance to write, parading our egos as substitutes for intellect and insight. Some of us are tortured to write, whinging and whining our way through an opinion, or worse distorting a story to fit the anguished mood. Some seek to write the truth, some are employed to fabricate the truth. But most just try and fill the void.
An empty page is an appalling tyranny.
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