Stasis.

Why, I ask myself, do words sometimes flow freely, and other times they remain dammed up, stubborn in their refusal to be released?

Stubborn refusal - this is an adequate summation of my most common experience. I have something to say, and a vague idea of how I wish to express it, but no way of setting anything in motion.

The past 16 or so months have taught me that there are ways of teasing sentences out of a reluctant head and setting them down with lethargic fingers. Certain pieces of music have been known to do the trick, pulling me close to the event horizon of my personal abyss, where the threat of extinction is near.

In having to bow down low before the self before I can write, the whole thing takes on the mantle of convention, of process, and I might as well apply for a repetitive, predictable job in a factory or an office. Convention and process spell the death of creativity. I'm aware of this even as the words 'the creative process' echo in my mind. When the first thing to do before a word is committed to paper or screen is to, without fail, annihilate one's emotional resources, then this is a convention, an a priori.

There is a never-ending battle between myself and the shadow of myself. I recall the quote from Savo Milosevic, the Bosnian-born Serbia international footballer. When preparing for a game against Bosnia (for Serbia), Milosevic said that he was playing for his country against his country. Similarly, I fight against myself with myself, and feel the victory of the body over the repudiated soul.

When writing the two previous entries on here, I performed some sort of sleight of mind which permitted me to express the unsaid. These are the ghost-sentiments, the unseen objects that hijack dreams and promote the 'sinking feeling' which occurs during waking hours.

I wonder whether I've hit on some trick of the light which will tip the battle of self against self in the direction 'I' most desire? By writing in (effectively) patois, or by maintaining the pretence of being an outsider, might this permit the articulation of thoughts which are otherwise too personal, too real?

To chip away at the prison which contains every possible thought - this is the thing. Should only the smoke or the mirror-image of these infinities ever present itself for diagnosis, it is preferable to the frustrating self-imposed restrictions under which I currently work.