Blank Page

Such a complex and mind boggling concept as infinity can be represented by something as simple as a blank page. You don’t need fancy equations that don’t include a single number in them, you don’t need to gaze up at the stars and ponder the meaning of life, neither do you have to go on a psychedelic trip to experience infinity. You can do so by simply looking at a blank page, in the comfort of your home, while sipping coffee from a mug.

All that’s really required is a reframe of perception. Because what else is a blank page, but infinite potential? What else is that white expanse of daunting nothingness, but a great staging ground for an endless possibility of creation? The void is not always black, nor is it always far away, deep and mysterious. Sometimes it’s plain white and glaring back at you, a few inches from your nose, waiting to see if you’ll crack.

The blank page is the most powerful thing that a writer (or any other creative individual, for that matter) can ever hope to tackle. It is pure freedom, a limitless ocean, an imaginarium sandbox. It is purer than a virgin which did not yet meet her first love, purer than a newborn’s smile, purer than a rain-washed sky. It hasn’t yet been stained by ideas and concepts, meanings and interpretations. Well, save for a few dust particles, but that’s just your dirty screen. 

The blank page exists as pure potential, awaiting the first decision to be made, the first stroke of a pen or press of a key. It awaits the touch of god to spark in creation a whole new universe. Like a big bang erupting in a cosmic explosion of stars and galaxies, a story is born with the first letter put on that blank page. The first mark. The first seed. The beginning of it all.

When filling that blank page, you get to play god. The power of creation is at your full disposal and you can do anything with it. For that time that you spend in front of the blank page, you are omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, creating something out of nothing. Framing a new reality, on a humble blank page.

Such power. Such responsibility. No wonder we shudder before it, we dread even looking at it. It haunts us in our dreams, tormenting us with the demand to be filled. And a fear of leaving it empty. For the freedom and the potential of it is overwhelming to the point of awe-inspiring terror; we shut off, black out. We block.

It is too much. It is not easy to play god, when one is a mere mortal.

But then again, if it were too much for a mortal to handle, how come there are so many great stories out there? So much amazing art? So many novels, movies, sculptures, paintings, songs? So many genius innovations, business ideas, new solutions, philosophies? Surely, if it were too much, there would be none of those, such power of creation reserved only for nature and for ‘the divine’.

And even then, man is a part of nature, not separate from it. So it is not only a great privilege, that we can stare down at the blank page and fill it with creation, it is a duty. Not a luxury, but a need, a necessity. 

Everyone has a blank page in their life that they face and for some it is literal. For writers it’s putting words down. For a businessman it’s building up his brand. For a scientist it’s observation of a certain aspect of reality, studying it. For all humans, it’s living more consciously and being more authentic in their attitude towards life.

The humble blank page never judges or criticizes what you put onto it. It never blames you for not putting anything there at all. It patiently waits for your decisions and accepts them without any questioning. You might say that, in a way, it shows you unconditional love. It accepts and embraces you fully. No matter if you’re on a roll, cranking out chapter after chapter, sculpting your masterpiece magnum opus of the next bestseller novel, wielding your proverbial pen like Michelangelo wielded his hammer and chisel, or if you’re dragging your hungover fingers over the keyboard, drunk and weary with procrastination, fatigue and depression, feeling like a rotting corpse of a whale, beached on the island of insanity. In both cases, the blank page looks back at you with an indifferent gaze. It is you who thinks of that gaze as either loving, or loathing.

So, how does one handle infinity? 

In a way, one doesn’t. In a way, infinity is best left infinite and to just observe it’s endless beauty. But since we are human beings with desires, needs and, well, bills to pay, we need to make a call. As writers, and as human beings, we can stare at infinity through a telescope or through a DMT induced trip, but when it comes to the blank page on our computer screen, we need to assume responsibility. We need to collapse that infinite potential in the form of a finite creation, a mozaik of individual letters, a creature of words and chapters - a story. We need to give it a shape, a form, a voice. We need to give it life. 

And we need to be very assertive and determined with it, because with every single word we put down we make a decision that favors that precise word over a million others. In a way, we are carving out infinity, discarding it, and leaving behind only one thing. One word at a time.

A simple sentence as “John drove to the cinema” already frames a whole reality of the story. John is a male name. A human name. Makes us wonder who this man is? What’s his last name? How old is he?

A cinema is a modern invention, a building where things called ‘movies’ are played. The sentence frames movies. It frames the story in a reality that we are familiar with; 20th or 21st century, Earth. What movie is John going to watch? What year is this exactly? 

He ‘drove’ frames action and implies a desire or motivation for that action. It also implies John having a driver’s licence and owning a car, perhaps. Why did he go there? Is he going to watch a movie? Perhaps he works there? 

As many questions as appear, the sentence answers to millions more of them, without them ever being posed. If the character’s name is John, then it isn’t Jack. Or Jane, or Herodontez Mancera Santiago de Sofia. If he drove to the cinema, then this is probably not happening in the stone age, or in the middle ages or before the Earth was even formed. The words frame the blank page’s potential and collapse its infinity into a very specific form - as simple as it might seem.

With the words I’m writing here, I could have framed a story about pirates getting drunk and pillaging merchant ships, while avoiding the royal navy. If I added a Kraken or two I could make it a fantasy or folklore. Or I could write about humanity discovering a civilization hidden on the rings of Saturn and make it a sci-fi. If I was any good at piano playing, I could write ‘Ten things I learned by playing the piano for 10 years’ and make it a blog post.

Instead of all those, plus many more, I decided to write about a blank page. Every word collapses that infinity into this precise story, or perhaps, this rambling of mine.

Dylan Thomas wrote; “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Stephen King wrote; “Do not approach the blank page lightly.” These two quotes have a lot in common, in fact; for writers, at least to me, they mean the same.

Do not think and expect it to be easy. Worthwhile things seldomly are.

Do not expect the blank page to do the work for you. It is merely a canvas, and you are the painter.

Do not wait for inspiration to strike. It’s easy to write a masterpiece when you’re feeling inspired. Enjoy that fleeting muse of divinity, but never rely and depend on it.

Do not get dismayed by others; listen to their advice, if they can give a solid one, but take everything with a grain of salt. Ultimately it is you who are the creator and it is your job, not theirs, to create your art.

Do not listen to your mind, it is not your friend. Ideas do not come from the mind, only fear, worry and self-defeat do. Think with self-esteem if you can, if not, ignore your thoughts entirely.

Do not quit. Never, ever, let the blank page slip your grasp, be blown by the wind and carried away for decades, until never found again, or perhaps recovered much later, evoking mountains of regret. If it is your dream and desire to write, then make a decision about it. And stick with it.

Do not say you’re going to write. Do it. Do not write that you’re going to write. Do it. Do not think and plan that ‘one day, you’re going to write a book’. Do it. Do it now.

And if you’re not a writer, then replace ‘writing’ with whatever life calling of choice that your heart longs for, and apply the same rules. The blank page is universal. It is the work that we all know we should be doing in the back of our minds, yet we do not do it. Because facing the blank page is hard, and watching YouTube is easy.

But it means the difference between smiling with inner fulfilment and heartwarming joy when looking at something you created, and smiling with sarcasm and quiet desperation to a cat video.

So what’s your blank page?