I exercised hard. “Do not overdo it” is almost a motto for me, not one priority among others but a measure for deciding priority itself. This week, however, many things bothered me, so I think I tried to relieve stress that way. It was only about thirty minutes each time, but doing it Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday in a row must have sent even the blood meant for my brain throughout my body, because thoughts of writing did not come easily. Until now, that is what I thought. I wondered whether thinking that I had to do something hard and well caused thoughts about writing to disappear.
The thought that I should write arises naturally. I can know what kind of piece it will be only after writing it, so I too watch with held breath the direction in which the thought flows. But that is after writing has begun. At the start, there must be an initial seed. There must be a beginning for there to be a process, and only after faithfully passing through the process does the end appear. Excitement about the sea, or the cuteness of a cat, were not yet seeds. Things worth leaving as notes were things I had thought through and pulled out; nothing had arisen on its own.
Yesterday I thought, “Am I doing well? Even if I work hard at writing, will I eventually become discouraged alone, close the blog and Brunch again, and disappear?” It felt as if the state in which simply sitting before the keyboard, or holding a pen, made me happy had vanished without a trace, like after a tornado had passed. I told myself I was writing because I enjoyed writing, not to show someone; that it was not yet time to expect results, so there was no need to cling. But it was not enough. Perhaps it was spring fever, or perhaps I looked pathetic for being attached to something I had never really done well. Then I thought I should write about that worry itself. It was still vague, but I believed that if I unfolded it one by one through writing, it would surely help.
Even if someone says chatting is a hobby, there are topics or situations that make the mouth shut. Even if someone says they like writing, moments inevitably come when the hand stops and thought scatters like wind. One can only hope such moments do not arrive in the middle of writing. But there was a subject I did not even want to begin. It was the worry that had begun to stir little by little since last week: What if that moment comes to me? What if I sit before the screen as before blank paper, anxious because I have nothing to write, while in the meantime the people who come to read my writing disappear?
When that thought first appeared, I dismissed it by saying, “There are no people who come to read my writing. There are only people who happen to read it.” But that answered only the later part, not the earlier question.
If I do not have anything I want to write, I do not prepare to write. People who have nothing they want to write but something they must write, people who must write even when they do not want to, or more broadly people who must do work even when they do not want to, are called professionals. I comforted myself by thinking I am not a professional, only testing whether I can even reach amateur level. I thought I had passed through it well, but I had not. When a subject appears, it should be written, and since I did not unfold such a good subject into writing, it seems to have stayed in my head.
There are times when I simply want to “write” something, no matter what it is. Setting a goal such as publishing or uploading several pieces every day does not suit me. Even if a day comes when people say I write well, I suspect that would still be difficult. Unless I write everything at once and only release it gradually. But it also does not suit me to prepare to write because I want to write anything, then agonize because I cannot. If it is “anything,” then I can write anything: what is in front of my eyes, what I heard that morning. If I insist on publishing it, I will become tense and it may look badly written, but there is no need to throw away the pleasure of writing itself. Even one- or two-line notes can be continued.
This morning I heard a story that at Tapgol Park, while twenty or thirty elderly men were gathered watching a baduk game, another old man threw five or six stones onto the board and ran away, causing an uproar. I thought it was a very funny story, but I could not think of it as a seed. I had become too discouraged. I kept thinking practice must not be skipped for any excuse, and that something I like must not become pressure.
In the end, perhaps the fact that I thought, even though this story came to mind, that I somehow did not want to write about it blocked the ideas that should have arisen afterward. Since I decided to follow thought and take dictation from it, I realized I must not pick and choose what to eat, and must not stubbornly skip a thought just because I do not like it. I hope this means I have learned the light tension needed for writing, though it still seems too early to say that.
Original Korean article: 우회금지