rain songs redux vol. 3
london calling
Everyone keeps telling me to write. Just write. Open the notebook and free associate. Phrases. Quotes. Scribbles. Journal again. Push yourself. Find it. Find it. Find it.
I haven’t felt like myself when I’m writing in about eight years. But my whole life leading up to that was an identity built around wanting to be a writer. I open the doors in my mind expecting there to be something, anything, and they’re locked. If I can pry them open, they’re empty. My conversations are more engaging, my interests are as varied as ever, and my desire to learn anything and everything about very narrow subjects is still there. But the words on the page are never there. I know it’s a muscle. I know it’s atrophied. And the longer I sit without it, the harder it is to come back.
The sheer terror I feel over it is overwhelming. The page stays blank.
It’s a problem I want to solve but can’t solve quickly, and the discomfort is necessary. I readily admit I need to “try,” but what that means is still in flux.
In January I returned to London for the first time since 2016. Right around when I lost my voice in the first place. The city unfolded as a picture book, wrapped in string lights and tinsel, hungover from the New Year and quiet in reflection. The more I travel, the less I want to travel with a plan anymore. So we walked.
That sheer sense of exploring outside an algorithm is empowering. No Yelp to tell us what restaurant to visit. No museums optimized for efficiency. No “What To Do In London” gamification. Just trusting instinct and taste.
The sheer vastness of choice is an ocean. So much of our interactions are passive; we’re aboard a cruise ship on that ocean with activities predetermined, looking out portholes into the vast nothingness of a JW Turner landscape. The colors are still vivid. The beauty still comes in waves. But it’s harder and harder to find ourselves when we can order food off an app, communicate on a variety of apps, read on an app, listen to music on an app, watch movies through an app, and interact with the world around us on an app.
It’s no wonder AI is so intriguing to the tech ghouls. They’ve already captured us in their nets and forced us into captivity. They can now predetermine what we scroll into, where the fences will be built.
But there’s still magic in not knowing. In trusting that our senses will tell us where to go. Our bodies wary and stumbling into a pub on the corner without looking up to see if it’s got 4.3 stars or higher.
I’m trying to find that voice again. Maybe it starts with a walk. Or a playlist. I’ll gladly take any advice you all have to offer. Either way, please enjoy rain songs redux vol. 3.