This is a letter correspondence series between writer Collin from Collin’s Corner and me, Natalie. We will be writing to each other every few weeks, rotating topics as we go. You can find my response here at On the Verge; Collin will be writing his response on his Substack.
Links will be added as the letters get published: letter 1, letter 2, letter 3
Collin,
Writing is perhaps one of the scariest things to do - aside from perhaps leaping out of a plane or giving a speech to a room of people or becoming a parent or opening your own business. Okay, so maybe not the scariest, but it’s definitely up there as one of the “Top 10 Things I Fear.”
It’s scary because whatever you put out there, whatever you write online is sort of written in stone. The internet has a sneaky, destructive way of finding the worse things you’ve said and so when you say something, you almost have to commit to it. People will either connect with what I say or feel alienated, I’m more scared it’s the latter. But that’s how it is, isn’t it? You’ll always think you’re the only one in the world that feels the way you do even though there are bunch people who share the same feelings somewhere on this big eight billion people bursting planet.
Your questions about symbolism have made me think and re-read my own post because I don’t know how much I really believe in symbolism, if I’m honest. I wouldn’t say that the dead-looking plant symbolised the rut I was in - rather it’s much simpler than that. I had lacked the ability to care about anything or anyone, including myself. I sort of resigned myself to this complacent, unsatisfied feeling, and in doing so, my plant received the butt-end of my poor caretaking skills.
‘The Tyranny of the OR’ is a great concept because many people want to operate in a black and white world - myself included; it’s easier to think that it’s a simple knock on affect of one thing to another, rather than cascading dominoes where you don’t know which one started the fall. When we don’t have defined answers to our problems, we are left guessing and without closure.
You describe it as a feedback loop, I see it as an elevator descending into a big hole - the weight of how I feel, my environment and all the neglected shores and tasks weigh on me. Eventually, I imagine, I’d hit rock bottom. If I’m able to begin tidying, the elevator moves up, and one day, I emerge at the top - hopefully feeling victorious.
You see, the worse we feel about ourselves, the more we’re inclined to neglect the things around us that require energy, time, and a concentration. As you said in Hard v Hard, it’s a Hard task to me because time and energy don’t guarantee feeling better. Which category do you think it is?
Your shamelessly wilting plant, I hope, has survived - but I wonder why you’ve left it that way? Did you find - excuse the plant pun - the root of your problem? Sometimes there isn’t one and being a bad plant parent is just that, it’s a small thing that requires care and work and there are days where we just don’t want to do it.
You’ve asked if I’m a ‘rules person,’ as in am I conceptually driven. I mulled this over for a while because I couldn’t decide if I was or not. I don’t think I am, but I do sometimes think of life in models as a way to visualise things - that elevator description above is an example. Another one that I’ve thought of recently is that life is like operating on a series of dials that have “too little” on one end and “too much” on the other. Our positions on the dials are not consistent; they are moving left to right all the time, pausing briefly in the middle before they shift again. We might imagine our lives like a car speedometer—one dial says we’re overdoing it on late nights out, another says we’re doing a good job keeping in socialising, a different dial might say that we’re spending too much money and not saving, but another will say we’re hitting the right amount of “living life.” When I wrote tending to myself, all my dials were humming noisily at the extreme ends of the scale.
While I flirt with the idea mental models, I prefer, if possible, to keep things plain and simple. I like things stated as a matter of fact, to be described exactly how they are.
I started this letter responding to your question about writing and how authors need to commit to it, even when we feel vulnerable. One thing that I’m always battling is inspiration for writing and keeping motivated with it week after week. It’s often a question I ask other writers because I’m intrigued to know how people can keep it going. How do you deal with the writer’s block - if you experience it? To use your analogy in idea mining, do you ever find yourself just mining for coal?
I look forward to our next letter exchange.
Good stuff. Looking forward to replying