The blank page. Flawless. Pristine. Unscarred by error. Unblemished.
I love blank books. They fill me with joy, with the frisson of untapped potency. They are, in their unmarked state, a monument to infinite potential. Perhaps the book will be come a sketch pad for a young artist's work - a minor contributor to future great works. Perhaps a diary, like a companion as its author pursues great things.. Or minor things… or engages in deep introverted discovery. Perhaps it will become the author's song book, a scheduling tool, or a portable to do list, a family cook book, a home's guest book. It may become anything and in that moment of untapped potential, it is perfect. All avenues await - none is closed to it yet. No mistakes have been made.
And I always experience a brief kind of mourning that sets in once the first page is marked. Invariably the book as become 'a singular thing' and will never become the myriad of other things which were once possibilities. Indeed, the possibilities which once were nearly limitless are now fixed, virtually immutable. We hope, invariably, that as the pen touches the page greatness will emerge, that brilliance will dot the page, writing of a caliber worthy of the great potential that was sacrificed in the scarring. But experience teaches us that we are usually disappointed, and stays the hand holding the pen.
Occasionally I'll have a book that becomes a few things as once, trying to fulfill multiple potentials - perhaps that will help? But no. The books are less useful and seem somehow less perfect, not more, like that. And yet even those are something - the blank books, in their empty perfection, are nothing.
It was a grey winter day, surrounded by frozen crusted ice and snow when I stopped to think how odd that was. Perhaps it was the cold, pristine, emptiness of the landscape that triggered the thought. Why are blank books so great and written-in books so … not? What happens to them, to us, once the marks have marred the page? Why is that potential so valuable, almost painfully so, that we may resist that first stroke of the pen?
Are we a culture of potential over achievement? We rush to tag the greatness to come - to spot it, to see it first. Why? Why do we value that? We are more fascinated by the greatness that is in its infancy over that which has grown and is nurtured to ripen. More people seem to care about draft prospects than the middle of the road achievers even though their achievement is greater and their work may justify appreciation. This is all quite wrong-headed.
Blemish your potential. Struggle. Do not let the need for perfection defeat the possibility of accomplishment. (Chicks dig scars)
Half a cookbook is still worth more than the possibility of Wuthering Heights.
Greatness attempted and unachieved is far more valuable than all the success one can imagine - if it's left merely in the imagining.
Similarly, perfection in life is found through the living of it - through the experience of it - with all the bumps and bruising, the stubbed toes and the hangovers inherent therein. Even this essay, jumbled and stumbling as it may be, is of more value, is of more use, and is just plain better than the empty page staring at me when I began.
Nothing you will ever write will be as perfect as the pristine page before you.
Yet anything you write will be better.
Mar the page. Take a chance.
Live. Do. Become.
Blemish.
- PMM - 2008
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This is a writing from 2008. It's a theme I continually return to so I'm looking to revise & update the thing. But I also wanted to preserve my first stab at the idea.
So, with the exception of two corrected typos, here lies the earlier piece in all its rough & ugly glory.
