Confessions of a Writer

As a human being, I always fail. I always forget, I always err, I always doubt.

As a writer, on the other hand, I do too.

There are two ways to write, just as there are two ways to do anything: describing the details of a dream, or being awake from within the silence. From the crudest way, where words trip over each other in a composition rehashed by the intellect, to the art of expressing silence without taking part in the authorship, there is a whole range of possibilities. It is not what I say but where what I say is born from.

For me, it was a few years ago that something began to open. My childhood dream began to press itself upon me. The yagé medicine set up a learning mechanism in a space inside me. Through several stages, words rained down headlong. My tongue stepped up a primitive, onomatopoeic activity. If I repeat any word a thousand times, it loses its meaning. Synesthesia threw off a balance I must keep struggling to return to.

Two episodes have marked milestones in the writer's story.

Also driven by the thirst that led me to drink yagé, there is an intention that roars with strength. For better or worse, I have an unmet need to teach. The roots of this symptom are, of course, a void caused by knowing nothing. So, I teach because I don't know. My limp is believing that I know. Running into my own pedantry has mattered so much in the unfolding of a process I put my heart into because I love it.

The second blow in my life came a few days ago. Without my trying, a character appeared before my vision. Very familiar, this being. It was like a two-headed monster, two very similar polarities. It was utterly harmless, except for its knack for staging grand spectacles of fighting and opposition between its two halves, something wildly attractive to human beings. I recognized it by the name of Politics.

I saw that the only way a human being can be caught by this force is by paying attention to it. So the content of my writings was: Don't pay attention to it.

But something wasn't right. I found myself stubbornly bringing these things up, even if only to raise awareness about them. What was happening was that the very thing I was asking to leave no impression had left its impression on me. So dark was the figure that unfolded before my eyes that it blinded me.

But then I went further. Or rather, the far crushed me. My gaze managed to glimpse the secret every ambition seeks, the secret known by those humans who have managed to conquer and run the world through powers like politics and sensationalism.

The secret to getting whatever you want is: The world is a dream. When you know you are dreaming, you can dream whatever you want. You can do with the world as you please. You are God to your world.

Suddenly, nothing mattered. Nothing had any value. So it's all been a dream! Nothing has ever held true, ever.

Suddenly, every word jumps out at me. The unreality of each word confesses that each word is false. So much I've attempted in this world, so much I've fought for. I have given my life, and it has been nothing but a dream.

How empty my words have been! How foolish to believe I know!

But the silence is always awake. I have lost hope, but I don't need it. Here is the silence, where words weigh nothing.

I no longer know what to write. Everything is the same. Everything is empty. Everything is ignorance. I have no grounds to teach, no chance of knowing. Nothing escapes being noise. I throw in the towel.

As a writer, I have nothing to give.

As a human being, on the other hand, I don't either.