Snapshot
Often, when I was younger, I would shy away from making a statement with my writing out of fear I would look back later in life and cringe at my ignorance.
Often, I would hold off on writing down that thought until I “had what it took” to state it best. Until I had the perspective to add full context to it.
Often, I would begin typing out an idea only to press down firmly on the backspace, thinking to myself, “What the hell do you know? You’re only 20 (or 25, or 30, or so on) years old.”
And then, years later, I began to realize something.
I realized that’s the point of writing in the first place.
By its nature, we think writing is eternal. We think that because dried ink lasts for hundreds, if not thousands of years, that we’re somehow obliged to be overly cautious — bashful, even — in our writing. That we should stir the pot, but not so hard that it falls, crashing and sending ceramic shards across the kitchen floor.
Now, I know the opposite to be true.
Despite its nature, writing is ephemeral. Not eternal.
Writing is an intimate look inside someone’s mind at a specific point in time. Someone’s mind that will inevitably change, grow, circle back, double down, and everything in between (if they haven’t done so by the time they dotted the last sentence of the piece they’re working on).
Writing shouldn’t be viewed as a portrait to be beheld — perfectly capturing what something is or isn’t, who someone is or isn’t, what an experience was or wasn’t.
Instead, writing should be viewed as a snapshot — an inside look at what something was at that very moment. Not what it became.
Writing should be a piece of you frozen in time.
Writing should be a passing thought on your daily walk, a flash of inspiration or jolt of genius or insanity, now materialized on paper.
So make a statement – even if the words come out jumbled.
Take a stand – even if the stool is wobbly.
Tell your story as if it were certain, as if it were absolute, as if it were the undeniable truth.
Because it may not be the truth, but it is your truth.
And what could be more beautiful than that?
