sure. wait. what?

LATELY I’VE been struggling to write without knowing exactly what I want to say. I need to have a point in mind, or if not a point, at least an ending or a thesis of sorts. Bereft of a destination, so to speak, I wander off after a paragraph or so, and I stop in my tracks like a lost little puppy, helpless and confused.

I wasn’t always like this. I used to write with an unyielding defiance to any sort of structure. I disliked preparing a list that goes Beginning-Middle-End, or its first cousin Intro-Body-Conclusion. I instead wrote like an artist painting alla prima, no sketches or guides, just brushing wet paint on wet paint and letting the “art” reveal itself with each stroke. 

Of course that slapdash approach to writing didn’t get me anywhere. My skills are sloppy at best, but I don’t mind; I quite enjoy the practice of writing in and of itself. Sure I write juvenile diary entries, but I am at least immune to the snobbish, elitist gaze of institutions, be it in the academe or the culture industry at large.  

But then come moments when the joy of careless, casual writing dissipates into the void, and the pressure of writing with intention weighs on me from all possible directions. 

I have had moments like these in the past, and they always pass. Somehow I always end up going back to regular programming, sparing no fucks about meaning or purpose. But right now, as we speak, the first-world problem of creative malaise is gnawing at me quite furiously. 

(Mixed metaphors much?, says a tiny cartoon version of me who magically appears right beside my keyboard.) (Am I Lizzie Maguire now?)

I blame Substack, sort of. The newsletters I’ve been reading recently are the thinky type, the kind that dissects books instead of treating them like mirrors to reflect one’s image upon. The kind that cites theory. Even the letters written in bullet points philosophize the mundane and deliver insights that are, sure, “basic”, but the attempt to get the writer’s intellectual gears churning is conspicuous. 

Cartoon-me nags again: You should write like them too, you know? 

She is now below my monitor, this tiny creature. She is lying on her tummy, her elbows propped on the table and her palms making a v-shape under her chin framing her face. She is smiling, teasing me.

But I can’t, I tell her. I’m not smart enough. 

Are you even trying?, she snaps back. 

I am, actually. And this is how I get stumped. The desire to write with intention can get me started, but without a specific message to express, I never know where to go. I can never finish anything. 

Maybe I simply have nothing to say, and that’s fine. Maybe I just need to let this feeling pass like it always does. What’s so bad about writing aimlessly anyway? 

Uhh, it barely counts as writing, Cartoon-me reappears on my right shoulder, a burst of fairy dust surrounding her. I swat her away with my hand. Shut up, you. Nagsusulat ‘yung tao pakialamera ka. 

Well too bad I’m imaginary, Cartoon-me pops up again, this time on my left shoulder. 

I want to crumple her like a sheet of paper, but she’s right. Too bad she’s imaginary. How can this pesky thing be both imaginary and real at the same time! 

My, I’m going crazy, aren’t I?