freedom and discipline
Yesterday, I realized that constant, successful writing takes two things: freedom and discipline.
Discipline, not “forcing yourself to write and punishing yourself for not doing so”, but “allotting time to write and sticking to it, sitting down, writing and enjoying the thing, too”. It’s possible. Just yesterday, I re-read the beginning of Flowers, and I found out where are the parts when I really, really enjoyed my writing. Funnily, these are not the parts that I’d expected to enjoy, and some of them were written while stressed-out and hurt. I guess it’s really impossible to tell beforehand, whether you’ll enjoy writing or not.
About the second part. Freedom. This realization came after reading “168 Hours” manifesto: there are many hours every day, every week that I reserve for tasks and people who never really take that time. For example, family wants me to be home and available even when they don’t really need me, “just in case”, but they never say “hey, don’t you want to have an hour by yourself, so you can write or do whatever you wish?”
That’s understandable. That’s how the world works, from tiny things (like five minutes of my time) to world wars: freedom is something you have to fight for. It’s not given to you for being nice and docile, it’s not a thank-you gift for giving yourself away. It’s nobody else’s responsibility that you have your freedom; it’s yours to fight for and yours to take.
The funny thing is that I used to do this for a while, and it worked fine. It worked fine for so long that I got used to it and thought that I don’t have to fight any more. That was when I lost my freedom, and with it, my discipline, and with it, my will to do anything.
Now, I can take it back. Because that’s the other funny thing about time: while people can claim it, nobody can take it away. I still have my 168 hours a week, and, no matter how I’ve wasted my time in the past, nobody is taking away my future.
