On Writing, Again

I re-wrote again, one of the more tiresome of the writing process. But it was still writing, putting together my thoughts into words. The headache I suspect to be a migraine, suspect, for I don’t know what they are supposed to feel like, still lurks. The light from the laptop screen is blinding. But I am writing this and more. When I know how cathartic writing has always been for me, why do I ever stop? Stupid, stupid me.

I want to quote whole paragraphs from Letters to a Young Poet, a collection of Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters to a young boy who wrote to him seeking advice. I want to quote the whole book for how much sense it makes to me now, at this stage where I am. I told someone that it could be amongst the books that changed my life, perhaps it will be the book that does.

Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. …Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? …And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, “I must,” then build your life upon it.

I must.