I wrote the following short story in high school. Or university. I can’t remember. But it marked the beginning of me realizing I had slowly lost the ability, or will, perhaps, to create. It rang true for many years on.
Here is the story:
One day, Michael went to the art store to buy a moleskine notebook. Despite the guilt of spending $18 dollars on the remnants of a dead tree, Michael was giddy with excitement. This is it. He thought to himself. This is the one. This red bookishly booking book will be the notebook I finally finish. I’ll fill it to the brim like an optimist would a glass of milk.
When Michael returned from the art store, he sat at his desk, forcefully swept his laptop aside, and serenaded the pages of his red moleskin with the ink of his $2 pilot fineliner pen. After filling up the first page, Michael checked for spelling and grammar errors, fine-tuned some of his lesser sentences, and then closed the notebook.
Michael felt like a changed man. Each train of thought inside his head began echoing louder than ever before. Ideas that once floated aimlessly through the crevasses of his brain now found home on the blank canvases of this notebook. Already, Michael felt slightly closer to enlightenment.
Maybe the reason I haven’t been progressing as an individual is because I spend all my time absorbing the knowledge of others, never taking the time to produce my own — Michael thought. I’ve been drawn into a world of screens and stimulation, failing to appreciate the remedial powers of pen and paper.
Michael was overwhelmed. He felt a strong sense that this small little book was going to change his life. No longer would he be but a passive actor in a world of commotion, no — he too, would have proof of creation.
Michael began thinking about the color of his next moleskin notebook, while imagining his decrepit future self shedding a tear as he revisited his collection of old notebooks. The memories of his youth, of hardships and adversities encountered, of blissful being, encapsulated in these pages until the end of time.
Soon, Michael’s head began to flood. Empowered by the prospect of permanence, all of his thoughts began competing in a race to be brought to life by ink. Although Michael prided himself in his good memory, even this was too much. He simply could not keep track of his train of thought, nor could he keep his train of thought on track.
In the end, this all became much too stressful for Michael. He convinced himself that $18 dollars wasn’t very significant, and turned on an episode of Friends. Michael was, after all, a weak, stupid man, devoid of any will power.
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