They say you have to get to a place, a deeper place inside you, to create anything. I have my reservations towards it. I believe one needs to be lost, yes, but not in some hole within themselves; one needs to be lost in the banal. My work is a defence for the mundane. In a world that seems to get more exciting, everything I do—part of which is my writing—is a testimony in a case no one is ready to fight. As is fitting, there is little I can say than point towards the obvious.
All I can say is look at this foggy night and think not about yourself but about people. I cannot see much of the city, and the hills are surely out of the question, but I know that life unfolds underneath it all—palpitating with activity. The apartment above mine is playing some music five minutes before the clock has struck midnight, and I feel both mild aggravation at their churlishness and appreciation for their humanity, in equal parts, like how this night is equal parts chilly and cosy. And if that is not enough, I would ask you to take a walk, and I would tell you this repeatedly, piece after piece, word after word. There is not much you can say to people to get them to open their eyes. You can only repeat the same things hoping the message goes across.
There is an array of houses and buildings that glow like fireflies in all this haze, and in them, someone does the dishes, someone else ponders over a life-changing decision, and many others sleep snugly. I stand here drinking chamomile tea. It has been a long day, and it is now over. Another day full of the tedium of existing, another day of its joy. There is little to say after all. This city, this life, all of it is beyond my grandest imaginations. That is more than I can say about any of it.