I'm Writing Nothing

A story about fear, fake confidence, and the long road back to myself.

I don't want to become a writer. I don't want to write a book.

I thought those things were the path to happiness and fulfillment. But I see now that the moment you decide what you want, you are signing a contract with yourself where unhappiness is the only thing guaranteed.

If getting something makes you happy, not getting it will make you unhappy. You restrict your future to one option of happiness: getting what you said you wanted.

This is a cautionary tale about self-sabotage. About fear, the master of disguise. About identity and good intentions. A story about surrendering and rebirth.

When my sabbatical started 6 months ago, I went traveling looking for an adventure. I believed that if you wanted to write interesting things, you had to live an interesting life. So I travelled alone to Asia seeking an epic journey of self-discovery. I was looking for experiences I could use to write a great story. My story.

The past few months, I'd been flirting with writing more and more. I reached the point of no return at my previous job, and writing seemed like the activity that brought me the most joy. Without any idea of what I wanted to do next, I clung to it like a life raft on the shipwreck of my life.

While travelling, every time I met new people in hostels, the inevitable question came up: "So, what do you do?". I didn't have an answer.

My default answer, "I'm an engineer," started to sound wrong. Was I an engineer or did I work as one? At the crossroads of my career, nothing sounded right. I could just have lied and said whatever to those people, but I feel that when you lie you mostly hurt yourself. Because the message is that it's not okay to be who you are. That it would be better to be another version of yourself.

In retrospective, I could have just said "I'm figuring it out". But I didn't. I did something much worse than that.

I said "I'm a writer".

Not because I thought I was one. But because I wanted to be one and I believe language plays a huge role in how we perceive reality.

When we talk, we are not consciously hand picking each word we use. It's mostly a stream of thought that flows from the deepness of our subconscious. And there, our true beliefs are exposed.

As a way to hack my own belief system, I started by changing my language in order to change my identity. If I wrote every day and said I was a writer, I’d eventually grow into that identity.

What I didn't see coming, is that people would also ask me "So, what are you writing?" That’s where I stumbled.

Reality made me uncomfortable. What would they think if I said "I write a blog with less than 100 subscribers and, more realistically, only a handful of people actually read what I write".

What a failure. That’s how it felt. I was ashamed of saying that. So, I slightly twisted reality. I swapped desire with idea, dream with plan, expectation with reality.

I said "I'm writing a book". And the way I saw it, was that traveling and gathering ideas and experiences was part of writing my book. Because I would eventually use this material to write my story.

It made sense. I was doing the work that enables the other work to happen. It made sense then, though now it sounds as ridiculous as a toddler saying he’s becoming a doctor because he’s in kindergarten. Yes, it's a necessary step, but it does not mean it would lead to that.

In my case, the step might not even be necessary. You can write a book about travelling without having travelled. It might not be a great book, but so many books aren't great and that doesn't make them less real.

I saw a book as a collection of chapters. At that time, I was writing everyday for my blog. So, if I could turn all those blogposts into chapters of a story, I would have (after a final wrap-up effort) a book published at my name.

What I didn't see coming was how those expectations were creating a huge debt that I had to pay some day. Like maxing your credit card.

Telling people I was writing a book felt amazing. Being a writer has a certain aura of intelligence around it. We consider people who read smarter than the ones who don't. So imagine being the one who writes what people read.

So I kept writing during my travels. With the confidence that it was all going to be useful for writing the book.

Because I was jumping from country to country, from hostel to hostel, I had plausible deniability for doing any serious work. The conditions were just not there. I didn't have silence, a desk and the peace of mind to put all my ideas together to write the book I told people I was writing.

There was always a new destination I had scheduled, that could bring a new story that could potentially be part of the book. Trying to write a story during the trip felt pointless. Whatever happened in the next week could change the entire plot of the book.

There were so many new experiences during my travels, that it was hard to pick just one as the main idea. Weaving all of them together into one book seemed like a project that was too daunting for an aspiring writer like me.

I just kept on taking notes and wished that, when I had the time and tranquility, the book would manifest in front of me.

I had some ideas for the book, but none sounded 100% like the one. Maybe writing about how it feels to take a sabbatical. Maybe writing about my experience walking El Camino de Santiago with my mom. All of them sounded good but none sounded great. I was looking for the story people wanted to read, not the one I wanted to write.

After 6 months of being here and there, I finally came back home.

I spent the first week signing up for a gym, visiting friends, spending time with my girlfriend. Doing all the things I couldn't do while traveling, and not doing the only thing I had been doing so far: writing.

It's not that I didn't want to write. It’s just that anything else felt much more interesting than writing. Making a fitness plan for the summer. Playing with my new DJ equipment. Daydreaming about opening a café. Learning about AI.

Anything but writing.

What was happening to me? Is this the famous writer's block? I didn’t feel blocked because I never sat in front of the computer and couldn’t write anything.

This was subtler. I just avoided sitting down to write altogether. And I always had a reasonable excuse.

If fear knocked on the door without a disguise, we wouldn't let him in. But fear is smart, so it dresses as productivity. As self-love. As enjoying life because you only live once, right?

It camouflages as perfectionism. As attention to details that don’t matter at all.

It was the fear of doing a job that could’ve been done better.

Maybe I didn't know enough about writing. If I only read another book to get inspired, sign up for a course to improve my prose. That could be the answer to get my confidence back.

Or maybe I knew enough but I haven't worked as hard as I could. So I could work an extra hour. Take another look. Then another.

I don't want to be afraid. I don’t want fear anymore. Fear is the mind-killer. What I need is a system that keeps fear under control.

I don't want to publish crap. I want to give my best. But the self-doubt will never go away, and nothing will ever be as good as it can be... but it will be done, and it will be real.

And real crap makes me grow more than imaginary perfection.

The problem is, where do you draw the line? Maybe the craft is finding the balance. How much to edit. Developing a feeling for when done is done. Because done won't ever be done.

What would I regret more: writing something people hate or not writing at all? Why do I care so much about what others think about what I write? Is my ego that fragile? Am I so attached to the image of being the smartest kid in the classroom?

The world is full of really capable insecure people but the ones who get what they want are the ones who just go and do it.

I have to conquer that fear and publish again. Anything. I haven't published anything in a while and my confidence vanished. Maybe that's what it's all about. To build confidence at a higher pace than it evaporates, because no self-image lasts forever without constant reinforcement.

Thank you for sitting with this raw, unedited piece of possible nonsense. I care about you, but I care so much that it’s started to paralyze me. So I need to care a bit less about you and a bit more about me.

I need this win now.

And self-love is giving to myself whatever I need to thrive. Sometimes it is tough love and harsh editing. This time it is compassion. For giving myself the permission to release from my body the feeling that is constipating my creative process.

I remember watching a video of Ed Sheeran talking about the dirty faucet theory. When you open a water faucet, the first stream of water comes out brown, muddy and dirty. The pipe is getting cleansed. After all the shit water comes out, clear water will start flowing.

This is my shitty water and that's fine. I'm letting it all out.

I don't know how to close this piece. No conclusion. No happy ending. Maybe a quote can suffice. Thanks for reading and see you next time.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

― Frank Herbert, Dune