Unsent Letters #12

Make your thoughts immortal

Photo by Luca Onniboni on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Dear T.,

I’m writing these words under the yellow light of my desk lamp, with you in mind and ‘How to fight loneliness’ by Wilco in the background. Just smile all the time, it says. Around me, books and stacked sheets of paper demand overdue attention. It’s late at night; I’m not used to being up this late anymore. But you know I dig tennis, and Indian Wells is underway. And California is nine hours behind. And Sinner is playing at two.

I think you should start writing. You should start transferring your thoughts on paper. They’re always so clean and pure. I know you don’t want to hear this, but they are. I’ve been saying it for ages. You think without prejudices, freely, fearlessly. And you voice your thoughts as if your brain talked. When I say this, you stop me short. It’s a weakness, you remark, and it’s incurable. And close the argument. I know you say this in earnest -- you don’t throw stock phrases out there for the sake of appearing or concealing. Sometimes I wonder why between us there’s never been anything more than a genuine friendship.  

You know, there’s another Wilco song that says everything alive must die. An inescapable law of nature, it sounds like. A gentle reminder -- if something lives, eventually it ceases to live. Like your thoughts. Your beautiful thoughts. They are alive but they will die with you, one day. Unless you decide to make them immortal. To do that, you don't have to be a scientist, or a magician, or God. All you need to do is start writing. People write for the most disparate reasons; they all count. I write to leave a trace by making my thoughts immortal, regardless of whether others read them. They are out there, and they will stay out there forever. 

Yesterday I was chatting with my friend Yehudis. We’re writing pals and, as such, we talked about writing. In truth, we also talked about risotto, but it was a brief digression. She writes authentically, intimately, and non-strategically. Much like the way you think. We touched on style, purpose, and motivation. Her pieces are personal stories and reflections on facts of life narrated as you would hear them in a conversation with her. A kind of beautiful, directionless prose that conveys a certain sense of haziness, as if everything were enveloped in gauze or viewed through one of those lens filters used to make photos with blurry surroundings. 

The conversation drifted toward motivation, and the fact that writing is a cyclical endeavor. I’m in a period where I don’t have much time to think, she says. I’m too busy and easily distracted, and my writing suffers accordingly. I don't think her writing suffers at all. In fact, I find a consistent quality in her pieces. And it’s not even a matter of quality: I just like them. You know why? Because she writes things that only she could write. Her stories, her life, her reflections, her dreams and nightmares. She is her own personal monopoly, her niche. 

And then I thought that I’m partial to this type of writing. One where the writer’s aim isn’t to package their knowledge, but to package themselves and their world. When deciding on whether to start writing, many think that they don’t have anything to say, but no one better than themselves could put into words what they think and feel and do. No one better than themselves could tell their stories. Some are more interesting than others, but they’re all authentic. I think you’d discover that you’re a natural for this type of writing, and your stuff would be so spontaneously interesting to inevitably attract many readers. Also, if no one reads, it’s okay. 

As a voracious reader, with time I have refined my idea of what gets me glued to the page while the world outside is about to end. It’s personal stories with beautiful thoughts in them, as well as the ability of the author to write in an open prose, where they leave space for the reader to float and imagine. To remain suspended. To connect the dots in a way that’s as creative as the writing itself. Much like the idea of silence in music. The music is not in the notes, but in the spaces between them, wrote Debussy. It’s not the notes you play; it’s the notes you don’t play, said Miles Davis. I know this is the exact same way you think and convey your thoughts. Why not make it the way you write then? Your thoughts will outlive you, and I’ll be your first reader.  

But now it’s almost tennis time, and I have to go. There’s a long night ahead.

---

"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

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