It is necessary to write regularly so that the habit automatizes the reaffirmation of the vow and the spirit does not succumb to the very dangerous lapses in which literature seems insufficient and motivation vanishes before the affliction of writing or, rather, before the affliction of existing. The writer cannot allow the limitations of life to convey the illusion that literature is also limited. He must see in literature precisely what life lacks; therefore, transforming occupation not only into a refuge, but into a solution to the problem of existing.
Change Can Be Better Understood When…
Change can be better understood when we think not of “change,” but of the death of one state for the birth of a new one. When something changes, what was ceases to be and gives way to something different, either better or worse. The previous state, however, becomes the past. Thus, it is wise to be cautious whenever one thinks of changing something that pleases or satisfies. To change something good is to destroy it, and the result of the change will not always be able to satisfy.
All This Affliction Experienced by the Serious Writer…
All this affliction experienced by the serious writer could be mitigated if it were possible for him to promise and deceive himself, with each new work, that after completing it he would stop writing. Therefore, to see the present work as the last, always. Thus, the illusion of later relief would give strength so that the very painful work of the moment would not afflict, but rather motivate, because it is the last of a spirit that is one step away from rest. Unfortunately, this is not possible. What is possible is to see in dismay how much one still has to do, is to feel imprisoned by duty, obliged to force lines that refuse to come out, and then to fry oneself in a terrible process in which the satisfaction is strange and the result is always the same affliction.
Detaching From the World Does Not Mean…
Detaching from the world does not mean to annul any worldly expectations, but to adopt an impassive posture before what happens. To expect that a good action will bear good fruit is natural and even stimulating; to plan and act according to a plan in the hope that it will be successful is, at the same time, to value time and one’s own being. Quite different is the case of the one whose expectations neither stimulate nor dignify the act, and whose existence is reduced to an uncontrolled yearning that has in the world, and not in the act, the parameters for its own realization.