Issue nº 112A

One day in January 2006

     It is raining hard today and the temperature is close to 3ºC. I decided to go for a walk – I feel that if I don’t walk every day I won’t be able to work – but the wind is very strong too, so I came back to the car after ten minutes. I took the newspaper from the mailbox, nothing important in it, except the things that journalists have decided we should know, follow up and take a position on.
      I go to the computer to read my e-mails.
      Nothing new, just some decisions without any importance that I can see to later.
      I try a little archery, but the wind is still blowing so strong that it’s impossible. I have already written my bi-annual book, which this time is called “The Zahir”, and there is still weeks before it comes out. I have already written the columns I publish on the Internet. I have already written the newsletter for my page on the Web. I have had a check-up on my stomach which fortunately detected nothing abnormal (they really scared me with all that business of sticking a tube down my throat, but there is nothing so terrible about it). I have been to the dentist. The tickets for my next trip by plane, which were taking a while to arrive, have finally got here by express mail. There are some things I have to do tomorrow, and some things I finished doing yesterday, but today ...
      Today I have absolutely nothing to concentrate my attention on.
     That scares me: shouldn’t I be doing something? Well, if you want to invent work, you don’t need to make much effort – there are always projects to be developed, bulbs that need changing, dry leaves that need sweeping, books to be tidied up, computer files to be organized, and so on. But how about just facing a total void.
      I put on a cap, thermal clothes and a rainproof jacket, and go out to the garden – like this I’ll be able to stand the cold for the next four or five hours. I sit down on the wet grass and begin to make a mental list of what passes through my head:
      A] I am useless. At this moment everybody is busy, working hard.
      Answer: I work hard too, sometimes twelve hours a day. Today, by chance, I have nothing to do.
      B] I have no friends. Here I am alone, one of the world’s best-known writers, and the telephone does not ring.
      Answer: of course I have friends. But they know how to respect my need for isolation when I’m in the old mill at St. Martin in France.
      C] I have to go and buy some glue.
      Yes, I have just remembered that I ran out of glue yesterday, why not get into the car and drive to the nearest town? And that thought brings me to a halt. Why is it so difficult just to stay as I am right now, without doing anything?
      A series of thoughts goes through my head: friends who worry about things that have not happened yet, acquaintances who know how to fill each minute of their lives with tasks that seem absurd to me, senseless conversations, long phone calls to say nothing of importance. Office bosses who invent work to justify their jobs, employees who are afraid because today they were given nothing important to do and that could mean that they are no longer any useful, mothers who torture themselves because the children have gone out, students who torture themselves over studies, tests, examinations.
      I wage a long, difficult fight with myself not to get up and go to the stationary to buy the glue that is missing. The anguish is immense, but I’m determined to stay here without doing anything at least for a couple of hours. Little by little the anxiety gives way to contemplation and I begin to listen to my soul. It was dying to talk to me, but I’m always so busy.
      The wind is still blowing very hard, I know that it’s cold and that tomorrow maybe I’ll need to buy some glue. I’m not doing anything, and I’m doing the most important thing in a man’s life: I’m listening to what I needed to hear from myself.

New book
“The Zahir” is being published all over the world this year. Click here for more information.