Writing is an OCD

Writing is a condition that exists in people, a psychologically healthy disorder of some kind. The by-product of which is this urge to express yourself in text, no matter when or where or why. It can happen on a boring Sunday night sitting alone in the kitchen with the city’s sounds playing a perfect background score. It can hit you in the middle of a crowded intersection sending you grappling for a pen and paper, any paper, as long you can write on it. It can appear unannounced in the middle of falling asleep, just as the darkness is about to take over when a few words will light up and string together like a row of Christmas lights suddenly making sense. You can’t really control it, this premature inspiration. You have to fight your tired body and your unhelpful surroundings to find a way that you can relieve this naturally-born addiction.

 It doesn’t matter how you handle the situation. Some choose to do it the old fashioned way, taking the sharpened edge of 2B lead and touching it down on the sinfully clean paper. Applying just the slightest amount of force, enough to leave a clean mark but not so much as to tear the fragile canvas. Then you begin giving a form to your thoughts, slowly at first, but with increasing swiftness as the words start taking the discernable shape of an idea. Or you can try the cleaner .doc method. Just replace the pencil with a keyboard and trade the freedom of flowing movement for the precision of typing. It’s when pixels become the pills that satiate our psychosis. And eventually as the episode subsides the flow of words comes to an end and you’re never really sure if any of it makes any sense. That’s when you realize it doesn’t really matter, as long as the ritual left you feeling normal again.