Which is a worse situation: either a) having oodles of creativity bursting to be scored/written/orchestrated/spewed forth from your mighty pen/typed with your diligent keyboard/etc. and yet be lacking the time and place in which to do so; or b) having ample time with which to create genius, yet be lacking in the creativity you so desire to have?
I currently find myself suffering from the latter (option “b”) and am therefore spewing forth whatever nonsense I can think to write about. In this particular instance I find that I have writer’s block to write about which therefore completely eschews the theory and universal definition of said writer’s block. Perhaps in this rambling diatribe I will run out of things to say about writer’s block and will therefore fully succumb to the mind-racking numbness the affliction invariably leads to. I hope not, that would be awful. It would be a little like that page in Goodnight, Moon that is completely blank and only reads in the bottom corner, “Goodnight, nobody,” The sheer overwhelming crush of nothingness brought about by a simple case of writer’s block which, in a way, could be representative of existentialism on the whole.
Existentialism is the idea that our destinies are mapped out completely by us, the persons, with deities having little or no control over the whole thing; the idea of absolute nothingness, full existence, and eternal freedom.
Originally that whole idea seemed a little bleak, the idea that we truly are the masters of our own destiny and fate, that there are no great puppet strings controlling our actions and helping us along, that we are alone. But then I began to really think about it: the existentialist has nothing to fear. Whatever is going to happen will happen as they accept the consequences of their own actions. In a way, an accepting existentialist is possibly the most at peace person in all of creation. Say what you will, but while others are busy questioning whether or not they led a good and wholesome life, whether they truly abolished that original sin, whether those seventy-two virgins will be ready and willing whence they go wherever they will go, whether they achieved the sought approval from a higher power, I imagine the true existentialist does something sort of like this:
He sits back in his leather deskchair, feet propped up on his desk and arms crossed behind his head. Perhaps a mug of coffee sits near the mousepad, 4chan/b/ on the monitor as his lazy eyes roll towards the worrying nips that surround him. An all-knowing smirk crosses his lips and he briefly ponders the eternal question of “heaven or hell?” before the blip of thought fades into nothingness. Slowly, he lifts his legs from the desk and leans forward grasping the mug with one free hand, bringing towards his nose he deeply inhales enjoying the aroma of a well-made mug of coffee. He sips experimentally, it is delicious. Calmly, our existentialist replaces the mug on his desk, leans back and props his feet up once again as his cubicle mate glares at him from a cluttered corner.
Muttering quietly, the cubicle mate shuffles about cardboard coffee cups, folders and printouts. His monitor displays spreadsheets, matrices and word documents as his printer never ceases production. The Existentialist passing him a quiet glance before closing his eyes and humming quietly, “que sera sera, whatever will be…”
In my mind’s eye, our existentialist is wearing fitted pants, pointed boots and waistcoat, his sleeves rolled smugly halfway up his forearms, perhaps a bit of stubble grows on his face. Whereas the cubicle mate, working tirelessly through life to appease some higher ups wears something resembling Leo Bloom’s accountant’s uniform.
So, back to Goodnight, Moon and that page that troubles me so…”Goodnight, nobody,” As holyjuan.com pointed out, who is nobody? On the blank page there exists no “person,” so who is it? Asking this I am straying from my original point, so I’ll just get to that now in examining that page as purely existential fare: perhaps nobody is the existentialist; the person who had no one to answer to but himself and therefore failed to create any discernible identity within the confines of societal expectation. This is the sort of scary existentialist I had originally imagined when the philosophy was first introduced: the existentialist who, under all circumstances, fails to be. But now I realize that there are two kinds of existentialist: the nobodies- those without identity simple wafting through time until they have exhausted their purposeless life, and the somebodies- those who, understanding the lack of previously mentioned puppet strings, become their own Puppetmasters. Current society would tend to call them atheists as your standard existentialist, in upholding the credo of the philosophy, does not believe in a higher power, but these are the people who, when looking into the void and understanding the nothingness achieve something from it by embracing the pure and simple fact that they exist.
In as much, writer’s block may be seen as a basal form of existentialism in that the hypothetical block represents a Nothingness, a barrier beyond which someone cannot succeed, create and be. As with existentialism, there are differing approaches to writer’s block; you can give up and try another day, or you can keep trudging through until you have a philosophical argument on the screen before you. Either way, however, the end question is almost always the same: how do you finish?
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