Normal life is the rule; nomadism, the exception

A newsletter about creative blocks, originality, and two completely opposing lifestyles

This is certainly not a newsletter about writing. But writing consumes any writer, so much so that I inevitably see metatexts here on Substack.

Writing about the difficulty of writing helps with creative blocks —after all, the theme is given on a silver platter— but it can also be quite challenging. The tendency to hate anything that flows from our keyboards is overwhelming.

Or there's the feeling of fraud, that we're fooling readers with every word we write —would it be better for ChatGPT to write these tangled lines?

In March, I wrote a bit about this in the piece "The pleasurable but painful habit of writing a newsletter in Substack" Creative blocks come and go, and managing to maintain a newsletter, even at a slower frequency than initially planned, is something to celebrate.

However, there are phases when creative blockages completely take over. This is a worrying moment in which we should pause and think about what's happening.

Life is chaotic, and that alone would be enough to justify any absence. But some level of chaos is necessary for anyone who wants to write. If nothing stirs, there's no subject, no newsletter.

Creative block sneaks up when we lose control over the chaos level. Chaos doesn't need to be literal. For life to be in turmoil, we don't have to be moving, ending a relationship, or unhappy at work. The worst chaos can be internal. The mind, when well, is an ally, and when not, a talented villain.

I wonder when my creative block may have started. De-nomadizing isn't easy, so it probably influenced it. Having a newsletter called No Direction Home and having a home again doesn't help at all. Certainly, there are personal and professional factors in all of this.

What will I write about? What do readers expect from a newsletter about nomadism by an ex-nomad? I wouldn't undergo surgery with a former surgeon. But there's more room for subjectivities and contradictions in words and ideas than on an operating table.

I lived the nomadic life for a year and a half. I'm not unique, but I know there aren't many people out there who have spent so many years without a fixed home. It's a growing movement, accelerated by computers, the internet, and the pandemic. But now that I'm back to "normal" life, I'm amazed by the millions of people in a city like São Paulo going to and from their jobs, crowding the subway, picking up their kids from school —in short, leading a completely routine life.

That's the rule. Nomadism, the exception.

Writing about these two sides of the coin is perfectly possible, as I'm doing in this text. I'm back to a routine, even though I stopped having a routine because I claimed to hate routines. However, our life model forces us to have some routine (even in nomadism, I had one!). The goal is to have the greatest possible flexibility in that routine. It's that or be unhappy.

There's no shortage of topics for a good writer, and there never will be, even though many have said everything has already been written. In Sonnet 59, for instance, Shakespeare questions whether what we judge as original is just a recreation of the past.

A tremendous restlessness has taken over me since a friend brought up the idea that everything has already been written. What's the point of writing if I'm repeating ideas? Has someone already written these exact words I'm writing in this edition? I doubt it, but I'll never be able to read everything written to disprove the thesis.

This friend himself, a writer, has been publishing books that win awards. Of course, he spoke in a tone of provocation but also with a certain shell of truth and concern. Whether dealing with past or original ideas, he's an excellent example that we can't believe everything we say or hear.

No Direction Home is, for me, a grand experiment to try to overcome these fears and seek as much originality as possible. It is an achievement to be almost two years into a project with 750 subscribers. Figuring out what to do with this material is the challenge of the moment.

I want to thank the readers of this newsletter who always motivate me. The dear Evilazio Coelho, whom I met at a writers' gathering, told me something that might never leave my mind.

"I think frequency isn't an issue when we enjoy the content. In fact, a brief absence can even be a positive factor; it reveals the human side of the content creator who certainly needs a breather. And we, who follow along, notice when that's happening."

Until the next edition!

Photo by Matthew Moloney on Unsplash