“Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all happily
individual. But what can one write about happiness?”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
Sadness they say is a great motivator, especially for
writers. So, does it mean that when I don’t write or when I couldn't
write, I’m happy? Do I have to be in pain to write?
Sometimes I do get writer’s block. I am just a mortal. While
there are so many things going on and happening inside my head, I can’t seem to
put it all down in writing. That’s why sometimes I resort to Facebook or
Twitter when I just have to share it, and I don’t have enough time to blog.
Sometimes, I lose a lot of beautiful gems of thought and sentiment along the
way, as they end up in a black hole. Sometimes, I have incomplete or unfinished
entries. What started out as a nice promising blog would be just a paragraph or
two, the inspiration already missing and cannot be found even if I go back to
it.
But sadness (or lack of it) has nothing to do with it. Maybe
when I’m sad, words come easily, driven by the pain or the emotions involved.
And the tendency is to share that feeling to other people who would care to
listen and sympathize, to lessen the pain a bit. If it demands to be felt, then
it needs to be shared. To allow other people to learn from that pain, or gain
something from the experience. Why not, Oprah Winfrey advised us to turn our
wounds into wisdom, didn't she?
Writing when you’re happy is another story. For one, when you
are happy and you want to share that happiness, sometimes you run the risk of
rubbing some people the wrong way. They might accuse you of gloating, or making
yabang instead of inspiring them or making them feel happy for you. I have seen
a lot of posts / statuses in Facebook where the person shows off a
relationship, a job, an achievement, or acquisition, and more often
than not, the feelings he / suhe has evoked from his / her audience are probably
not the desired one.
“Yabang naman.”
“Hiyang-hiya naman kami sa iyo.”
“Ikaw na!”
“Siksik, liglig,
nag-uumapaw ka na sa blessings, tirhan mo naman kami.”
“Neseye ne eng lehet.”
So is it easier then to gain sympathy when you’re bleeding,
than win approvals when you’re on top of the world?
You be the judge.
~TheGoodGirl
