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Page 50

What happens if you just look
at the page for, say, two hours?
(Am I safe in assuming that you have not
done so yet?) We each have our own
demons, but, typically, for a minute
or two or three or ten, it's easy,
big deal, now what? (Don't stop then.)

Then you get a little uncomfortable --
an itch, the chair seems not to fit
your ass, your neck feels stiff, eyes
too heavy -- anything! And you know
"This is impossible. Man is not meant
to sit this long." And you quit (but
don't -- there's more. It gets worse before
it gets much worse -- and then better).

Just sit there and look at the page
and do nothing else. It becomes
torment -- and if you continue,
the torment suddenly or gradually
is not there. If you try to "solve"
the torture (maybe go into a trance),
the solution becomes a problem
(you get dopey, your head wants badly
to drop onto the table; you start seeing
hellish monsters or paradises or faces
in the blank page; the room turns white
or black) --

there's no end of stuff lurking in that page,
persuading you that it is dangerous,
and when you just look, it all flies off
in your face. Feelings, too, like a swarm
of furies (those who attacked you for writing --
for daring to be here and communicate -- have been
hiding on that page), and then --

you've been sitting there now for nearly
two hours, sitting where it was first too easy,
then for an eternity impossible to sit;
and suddenly it's easy to be there
with that blank sheet of paper. You could
do it forever. You and it are what you and it are;
you are what you choose to be.

Shall we put some words on it?

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