A Productive Day

I am sitting at the kitchen table. A pot of something simmers on the stove. One cat is wrestling the other while the dog guards his food dish. 

For so long I needed solitude to write. The slightest sound threw me off. Even in silence, the mere presence of someone nearby distracted me.

But here, today, at the kitchen table, it’s this presence that allows the words to flow. I am not wrestling with whatever’s in my head, at least not in the way I used to. Rather it is simply there. Another part of me, and no longer the noisiest part.

Writing has meant different things to me at different stages of my life. When I was younger, writing was an outlet for nervous energy. Everything was jumbled back then, and it shows in my jangly sentences and rambling thoughts.

Now I avoid lengthy digressions and off-topic material.  I also remind myself not to overthink everything.

 “You sound more confident,” my friend Jack said to me. I thanked him even though I don’t ever feel confident in my writing.

These days writing is a moment in time, a moment I capture when I can.

Writing also shuts out the noise. Streaming video, pop-up ads. Constant beeps, buzzes and reminders. Writing brings peace.

A moment of clarity in a sea of digital noise.

When I write, I get to think about whatever I want, not what someone else wants me to think about. Sometimes I think it’s a luxury. But then I remember it’s really empowerment.

The older I get, the more I see this empowerment of independent thought as having to be protected at all costs.

Lately in America, one side lines against the other and not much more is said. The problem isn’t the actual dividing line. The problem is blind allegiance to a party line.

Groupthink, experts call it.

Intellectualization is a defense mechanism, so I’ll come right out and say it. Anyone sure they’re right is usually wrong.  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t listen to them. Even better if we respond. This is why I wish more young people wrote.

Writing is protection from groupthink.

But the medium is changing. What I call noise – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X) – today’s youth see differently. To them it’s expression, a way of connecting people and thoughts. They are communal, if mainly in the digital sense, these young people.

Who knows? Maybe they’re right. It’s not really for me, or for any of us, to say.

I look at the clock. The house will soon wake, and my semi-solitude will vanish. But that’s ok. It’s not healthy to spend too much time in your own head. Today’s session seems just about right.

I close the laptop, satisfied that it has already been a productive day.

Winter 2013