Sip of Coffee, Moving Pen
Habit is a surprising thing. It can sneak up on me, become second nature, and then invisible. Every day, I get up early, go to a coffee shop, sip an aromatic cup, and read. It’s an easy routine, effortless to maintain. Plus, most people think smart people read, and I like people to think I’m smart. Being admired is also easy. My habit elevates my status, at least to myself, and allows me some potentially justified self-congratulations.
But the second half of my daily habit is more troublesome. It’s also easy, but easier to avoid. Writing, pen-on-paper is a delicate thing. I’ve done it every day for weeks, but this morning I realized the last four days have passed without writing. I might be able to justify this by calling editing writing, and it is, but writing of a safer sort. Apparently, my inner writer sneaked out one night while I was fast asleep. So stealthy was his departure that I settled into a comfortable routine without missing him.
The past days have been busy professionally, and it’s been busyness of the kind that saps me of creative energy and lets self-doubt creep in. A production system I’m responsible for stopped working after nine months. I felt some external pressure, but I really wanted to fix it for myself, to prove my competence. There’s nothing I like less than the feeling of incompetence, because it’s so convincing and easy to believe. I spent hours looking for the cause, and the answer was so simple I was a bit chagrined. To make matters worse, the solution was discovered by my teammate, not me. I never got to prove my competence. That’s a funny thing about software systems: once you know where to look, the solution is usually trivial. But knowing where to look is often far from trivial. The funny thing about proving competence is that you’re never done—and it’s exhausting.
Personally, I’ve been thinking deeply about the state of the Christian church, its fragmentation, and Jesus’ high-priestly prayer for unity in the Gospel of John. Yesterday, I finished editing a longer piece of writing about that, and I’m coming to conclusions that don’t feel easy or pleasant. All of this has undermined my confidence and sapped my energy.
So perhaps there are two kinds of habits: the easy and the hard. Reading with a cup of coffee in my hand is the first sort, but writing is the second. Should it be so difficult? Here’s the truth about writing I forget: it’s a simple mechanical act. All I must do is pick up a notebook and a pen. Then, opening the notebook and turning the twist-top on my pen to extend it, I can place the tip of the pen on the paper and move it. When I do, a delightful black line appears on the white paper. If I move it over the surface of the page, words appear.
But instead, I can sit for hours thinking, fearful to bring my thoughts out into the daylight. Before long, I’m convinced they are not well-formed, not worth sharing. But if I start moving my pen over the page in front of me, it calls forth deeper things than mere pondering provides. Words are there, ready to share. So this morning I skipped the pondering and moved my pen. The simple act, easy to do, is a prayer for wisdom and God’s provision, which is as relevant in writing as in other types of work, and trust that something valuable, at least for myself, will emerge.
Why, then, do I neglect writing? It is an act of faith, and it requires stepping out without a complete understanding of where I’m going. It destroys the myth of self-reliance I can guard as I think my quasi-brilliant thoughts in private. It exposes them to the light of day where critics, myself among them, can judge their value objectively. This writing habit is, simply put, vulnerability. Exposing my deepest self and most tentative ideas is a habit that costs me. So I’d rather read someone else’s writing than create my own.
This morning, though, I’ll forget the cost, breathe a prayer, and move my pen trusting that there is a purpose for these words even if I don’t see it, and even if the process is a little uncomfortable. It’s a simple habit. Sip of coffee. Moving pen. Surprising how easy it is: to write. Easier not to.
