The blank page / To creativity!

Now that I travel 4 hours a day to and from work I’m left with almost no time for anything else. I try sometimes, to put this time to good use. Apart from having books to read and music to listen to, I bought a notebook to write stuff in. This notebook lay in my bag untouched for almost a month (one time I opened it, stared at the first page for a while and put it back in my bag) until finally, I wrote this:-

The blank page / To creativity! (6/10/09)

Does the blank page scare you? The blank page intimidates me. It stresses me out. It makes me feel like shutting the book and tossing the pencil. The blank page is unearthly. It’s pure, plain, empty, and its emptiness is contagious. It seeps into my mind and reduces all thought to void.

It seems unconquerable. To add to a blank page, to create out of nothing, impossible. A mountain insurmountable. I look at it, admire its beauty, admire those with the courage and skill to conquer it and then turn away.

But sometimes… Sometimes creativity once believed to be dead rises from its grave and roars a deafening roar from the back of my head. Then, with one sentence, with one word, as easily as life can be ended with a piercing bullet, the blank page is conquered. And after that one brave word follow thousands more, millions more. They sing, they dance, they play. They give birth to stories of hope and despair, take you on a rollercoaster ride of emotion, and spread the light of thought in this universe of infinity. They embrace you, inspire you, and share your loneliness with you.

As witness to this event, these words will testify. To remind me that blank pages can be conquered, that they can be even more beautiful when filled, and each individual is gifted with his own creativity which never dies. Creativity which will conquer books, page by page, word by word.

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