Who will teach me to write? A reader wanted to know. The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time's scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch, but touching it nonetheless. Because acting is better than being here in mere opacity. The page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut, the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life's strength; that page will teach you to write.
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Today, this particular wisdom, that's the only thing getting me through.
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