ON WHY “ONE DEFINING MOMENT” IS A BULLSHIT
Before we start, I need you to know that this is not how I imagined it.
Actually, I didn’t really have a clear picture of how this would happen, but I did have some expectations; something like Whitney Houston’s “One moment in time when I’m more than I thought I could be” type of thing.
/at least/.
What I did not expect (and definitely did not imagine) was:
me, freezing in pyjamas shorts (as this is the only dry piece of clothing I have left)
in front of a laptop with a broken keyboard,
in a pretty depressive Hamburg hotel room,
watching German-dubbed “Game of Thrones” episode (mortifying),
eating instant noodles with a wooden spatula (we’ll get to that later),
and sipping cheap red wine from a paper cup
while writing, well… THIS.
I guess my “Whitney Moment” ain’t gonna happen.
One of my dearest and wisest friends who is a writer as well told me some time ago:
“You know why I don’t write? I don’t feel entitled yet; I think about those GREAT writers and I’m thinking that before I even start, I need to have more: more to say, more to share, more to talk about”
/did I mention she is wise?/
And I totally get it, but as you can clearly READ, I’m not a disciple of her gospel.
I guess at the end of the day, it all comes down to our own personal definition of a writer. And that’s a tough one because even writers most of the time have no fucking clue what the hell are they doing. So please don’t expect any ground-shaking revelations now but just consider this… to be a writer is to be wired in a bit different way.
It means to perceive and experience the world through sentences.
It means to create stories. Daily. To experience a random, insignificant event and make “ten-plots Odyssey” out of it.
It means to create hundreds of thousands of parallel realities; to do it constantly and without thinking.
And this is exactly how we got here tonight, by the way.
This is why Whitney lost and I have no ONE MOMENT IN TIME – at least not the one I imagined I would have; instead, I have just THIS moment. What has led me to this moment was a couple of other moments; nothing inspiring really, just bit out of standard and pretty forgettable.
/placeholder for a really plain story on how I was cornered by a couple of guys on train station; how I’ve shocked them by my over-friendly/optimistic/slightly psychotic attitude and left them speechless (big chances they are still standing there… speechless), how I got to the hotel by walking in the rain and got soaking wet; had nothing to eat and wear so bought cheap noodles and even cheaper wine in nearby Lidl and then decided it’s time to start writing again/
If you think that reading this rather incoherent piece of writing was a total waste of time, I’ve prepared a little Lesson Learned.
It may not make it prettier, but at one point, it could make it useful:
If you buy instant noodles and plan to consume it outside of your house, choose the ones that have disposable spoon included
Status: Unpublished due to the weather.
Or alcohol.
Or noodles.
One month later
Before we start, I need you to know that this is not how I imagined it.
I was STILL waiting for “DA moment”.
For that “ONE moment it time”, that “DEFINING moment”, the MOST MEANINGFUL moment; The full moon, the new moon, first day of the month, inspiring summer evening, mystical sunrise, a special date in the calendar.
You get what I mean, right?
That ONE FUCKING MOMENT, when all the stars align and you feel on a top of your game – prepared, inspired and ready.
Full moons have passed.
New moons as well.
Hamburg moment has passed.
Days, weeks, months, brief moments of bliss and inspiration and yet I didn’t publish my first article.
Still, I continued writing.
But also self-indulging in words, daydreaming, feeling down and almost depressed, deleting, self-doubting, cursing my imperfect English, writing, deleting again, editing, draft-saving, and break-taking… and all I came down to was… well, nothing.
No moment felt “right”.
So no fucking moment in time resulted in fucking nothing.
A couple of days ago I’ve listened to a speech by Peter Dinklage and then he said IT;
The IT I knew very well back in July, but was stubborn to fully accept it:
“Don’t search for defining moments, because they will never come.
The moments that defined you have already happened. And they will already happen again.”
I am a writer.
I may not be the greatest writer in the world. As a matter of fact, I may not even be a good one.
But I AM a writer nevertheless.
My defining moments have passed already, and they’ll be passing over and over again until I decide to grab them.
So this is me, garbing a moment.
On a rather plain Friday night, half-sleeping, not really having much to write about; at least nothing that would come across as particularly wise or at least entertaining.
Just writing.
So here you go – the second Lesson Learned of the night:
The defining moment becomes defining when you chose to make it as such.
