Resistance to Writing
Writing, for me, is very much like getting into a cold pool. Every cell of my body resists. I dip my toe in and it’s way too cold and my body screams to turn back, to go home where the temperature is comfortable. My body wants warmth and pleasant sensations, not extreme experiences. I watch how others just dive right in. I rationalize that they are not as sensitive to the cold as I am. But I stand in the shallow end, first with just my feet, then up to my knees, then waist, chest, and finally, I dip my shoulders under and begin swimming. Once I begin, I wonder why in the world I didn’t just dive in. Swimming is so exhilarating and I get angry with myself for wasting ten minutes getting in. I then resolve to dive in next time.
But next time, it happens again. No matter how many times I go through my ten-minute pool acclimation procedure, it doesn’t get any easier. Every single time, I experience resistance. For me, writing is the same way. Writing is scary, boring, and hard. I don’t know why I do it when I’d rather be curled up in bed, reading.
William James said in The Varieties of Religious Experience:
Sometimes no emotional state is sovereign, but many contrary ones are mixed together. In that case one hears both “yeses” and “noes,” and the “will” is called on then to solve the conflict. Take a soldier, for example, with his dread of cowardice impelling him to advance, his fears impelling him to run, and his propensities to imitation pushing him towards various courses if his comrades offer various examples. His person becomes the seat of a mass of interferences; and he may for a time simply waver, because no one emotion prevails. There is a pitch of intensity, though, which, if any emotion reach it, enthrones that one as alone effective and sweeps its antagonists and all their inhibitions away. The fury of his comrades’ charge, once entered on, will give this pitch of courage to the soldier; the panic of their rout will give this pitch of fear. In these sovereign excitements, things ordinarily impossible grow natural because the inhibitions are annulled. Their “no! no!” not only is not heard, it does not exist. Obstacles are then like tissue-paper hoops to the circus rider–no impediment; the flood is higher than the dam they make.
I say this: when the desire to do finally outweighs the desire to not do, you do it. I don’t know how or why this push happens but eventually it happens. And I’m always glad in retrospect that it happened… both when swimming and when writing.
What are you resisting doing?
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