Wednesday, December 28, 2011

don't hurt yourself

I was trying to force myself to write the other day.  Some can’t seem to find the words making them want to pull their hair out or hitting their head against the nearest hard surface. It then dawned on me that trying to force a writing is like trying to force a crap. If it’s not going to happen, it won’t. Stop pushing already, you’re just  going to end up hurting yourself and wasting your time. Force is by no means a way to productive writing, it hinders your thoughts.

It is best to let it flow as it comes. When you hit a block, work on something else until it comes back to you. Even now as I write this I am bouncing back and forth between Facebook and other activities. Just write what you feel.

A story from Aesop comes to mind. The wind and the sun wanted to have a competition of who could get a traveler to remove his cloak first. The wind tries as much as he could by blowing hard and strong. The traveler wrapped the cloak around himself tightly. The wind threw everything he had at the traveler and the traveler would just grab the cloak even tighter. Just then the sun came out shining its rays so bright. It soon got hot and the traveler gladly threw the cloak off.
Aesop says it best, “persuasion is better than force”.

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