Sometimes the Blank Page Wins

That moment when, given a whole day to find something worthy of the page, you find yourself staring at it, contemplating whether or not your first idea was better than this one.  But you had already backspaced it into oblivion, a gesture you believed showed better judgement than blathering on uselessly about being discerning--something you're not even certain you have any expertise in, let alone the wherewithal to write about it.

And so the blank slate appears again, a sure sign that you're likely running out of ideas and are unlikely to find something better to write for the last ten days of January.  You've posited about future endeavors, brimming with excitement for the months to come, and you're certain that you've no more useful advice to offer your future self on how to improve should the need ever arise.  And yet, you know that there are surely other ideas out there merely waiting for you to find them and refine them--if only you'd had the time.

You ponder the lesson of "Stone Soup" and dislike the deception that creates the meal that everyone eventually shares.  It's a good lesson about combining everyone's meager parts to end up with a greater whole.  But it's that initial act of speaking about that stone soup you want to make; if only you had a pot, some fire, a bit of seasoning, and so on.  Perhaps the instigator is just as important, though--their gift the ability to envision something out of nothing.

And there you are again.  Staring at the blank page again.  Or at least the page you're certain might be better off blank at this point, but you leave the words there anyway hoping from them some vision will arise.  Or at least some semblance of an idea worth the effort.  But nothing comes.

You ponder the simple joy of the dog that slides down a snow-covered hill; you're not certain if he was doing it because he enjoyed it, or if it was the joy he gave to others that led to that adorable video.  And you decide that it was probably a bit of both.  For a moment, you contemplate writing about the idea of doing things that bring you joy, but then you discard that, too, to the mental trash heap of ideas whereupon so many such ideas are relegated after finding that the idea, while sound in theory, is a beast to articulate meaningfully.

So, struggling to wrangle an idea and bring it forth upon the page, you finally concede that, for tonight, the page has won.  It's blank contours, though filled with words, hold little to be desired when it comes to substance.  And you decide that sometimes that is just the way it is.  Some days, the blank page wins.

But there's always tomorrow.