To be alive

A writer benefits from doing nothing. Or at least doing something that doesn't require active thinking – not writing, not reading, not editing and definitely not marketing. Instead, the mission is to stroll and wonder and be in observer mode. Like a bird gliding patiently through the air, watching from high above and gently leaving space for life to happen.

As a writer, I should be doing nothing as much as I can. But I struggle because, like most people, I need to deal with life: with the broken car, the dirty bathroom, the aching teeth, the leaking roof. There's tax to be paid and plants to be watered, food to be made and parents to be called. Another course, another book, another session; vision boards and relentless holiday planning.

So much doing, so little being.

It's becoming normal to hear of independent authors who write and publish ten books per year, sometimes as many as fifty. Needless to say, that's only possible with the help of AI. But it's a new reality: hyperproductive writers adding millions of books to an already oversaturated market.

Who's gonna read all of this?

Every now and then I wonder whether I should actually continue writing. Everything has been said many times over in countless different ways. What's the point? We already have all the books we need.

On a personal level, there is a point: I enjoy writing and sharing stories. But when I look at our overstimulated, fast-paced world with its billions of stressed and increasingly exhausted people, constantly doing and working and going round in circles, what quickly becomes obvious is that more and faster can't be the answer.

Less, perhaps.

Slower, warmer.

A little bit wiser.

It could be so easy: slow down, be present and observe everything with the greatest equanimity; choose organic over artificial and human over intelligent; always be grateful and kind. But the truth is: life rarely works like that. In the whirlwind of everyday survival, we tend to forget what matters.

In the end, it all boils down to this: the fact that we're alive on a little blue dot is a miracle.

Everything else is distracting noise.