The Writer and the Sock

The writer is perfect. All people are perfect, it is circumstances that are not—so the writer believes, and it is the basis of all his work. 

Once, he thought otherwise. Once, he attempted both to create a character and to solve his life in its entirety. But he grew to know stories so well and know himself so well that he began to discern, in turn, what sort of things he could do in his stories, and what sort of things he could not do—and one of the things he could not do was solve a person. At most he was able to solve a single problem for a person; it may have been the most important problem at the moment of the story, but this was a very different matter from being that character’s “life problem.” And so the writer has come to believe that one should not try to perceive problems on the level of personhood, on the level of entireties, but only on levels that can be dealt with directly and in a dramatisable manner. Yes, when it comes to his limits, and the limits of reality, the writer is wise. The writer is perfect.

But today the Doubt comes.

The writer is at his desk. His coffee is beside his computer mouse, where it steams and waits, like a companion. The writer drinks the one cup of black coffee every morning. He acknowledges that without it he would find the beginning difficult, yet it is his habit to glance down at his steaming, waiting companion once or twice before taking a sip, as though it was a temptation. This is his only stimulant, for—read no pride in it—he does not smoke. Though perhaps one may count the modest library of classics next to his desk: a glance in its direction enlivens him. As for counter-stimulants, this is easy: when he does not want to be disturbed by his wife of children, he hangs a sock on his office doorknob. But the writer does not often need to use the sock. Only once, in fact, when he wanted to be sure to get a thought down—a thought which turned into a story and which this morning, just now, he has discovered is missing from his computer files. Perhaps it was never saved in the first place. Not to worry. He drinks his coffee, sets his fingers on the keyboard. The writer is perfect.

The writer produces something every day on principle. The writer has not produced anything of significance yet, but the writer knows that if it will come then it will come and does not bite his nails over it. He has a realistic sense of his work’s value: to him, it is the most important thing he can do, but he knows that politicians, engineers, school teachers, and so on, have equally important work. The writer has no illusions that beauty, or at least beauty alone, will save the world. He is not taken in with talk of art’s “essential” relationship to society; his stoic soul knows that nothing is essential. He thought differently once, in those years he had tried to solve those “problem characters.” But it had only led to suffering, such suffering that whenever the writer remembers this past he is glad to be rid of it. Too much a mess of cravings and confusions, youth—that is what comes of the habit of making a project of everything, especially the self. 

His flat in Berlin, back then, had appealed to his romantic nature: a mansard room with a solitary window peeking out above housetops, with the Berliner Dom just visible in the east, and it was here he had committed himself to “the Task.” His philosophy was this: certain moments are different than others. These moments, as soon as they are born, have difficulty; they struggle, they are the delicate runts of time’ litter. These are moments of insight, of joy, of Weltschmerz. It is to save them, to bottle-feed them, to let them grow up, that artists were invented. He would be one; he would be an artist. His characters would recall forgotten truths, rare exhilarations buried by the quotidian, and thereby fix the muddles they had made of their lives. But that was not all. Perhaps something analogous would happen to his readers. Perhaps by being a saviour of moments, he would be a saviour of more than moments, he would be a saviour of people...

Ah, but precisely here the Doubt had come upon him—indeed, for a time, overcame him. The suffering began. Two years it lasted, during which all he wrote condemned him from the page. The Task, quite simply, was too great, and weighed down by its immensity he could never quite gain leverage over his despair, could never get an objective glimpse of it. Everything became a searching, not for answers, but for a way out. One day the Bhagavad Gita said to him, “You have the right to work, but for the work’s sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working”—and he was cured for a time. He saw himself for what he was: mood-dependent, unable to say from one day to the next whether the world was headed towards universal salvation or whether it was merely a bog full of things sinking into bog. What needless drama! He craved peace and the benefits of complacency. To produce without ambitions: this was the way, and the writer has stuck to it ever since. He is much older now; he has lived long in this suburban house; he has great fondness for his wife and kids. Yes, he has achieved balance, rhythm, the necessary quietude of soul, and the Doubt comes seldom. Today is an exception. The writer is perfect.

The writer pauses to look at the dimples of shadow the sun makes upon his coffee mug. No words written and already it is empty. But the writer drinks only one cup a day. The writer is perfect.

The writer has learned to discern the various guises which the Doubt assumes. Sometimes the Doubt is very crafty. Today it is the spectre of his lost word document, the one he had put the sock on the doorknob in order to write. Could it have been his breakthrough? Is his chance gone? Is it over for him? These are the thoughts that the writer, one by one, dismisses from his mind. The Doubt is tempting him to look upon his life, his own life, instead of the lives of his characters. It is tempting him to characterize himself as though he were in a story—and worse, as though his life, in its entirety, were a problem. This is just what he has taught himself not to do. There is only darkness in this direction, only an endless muddle. The writer takes a breath. He returns to what he believes, namely, that everything may be boiled down to a character and his problem. These are two things, not one: people are perfect, circumstances are not. There is, in the difference between them, the writer’s salvation: all clarity is achieved in achieving the separation of the character from the problem. No, there need be no “quiet desperation” in the writer’s life, no spiritual condition at all. There need only be this: the writer and his problem. What is the problem? The Doubt. What is the Doubt? The thought that there might be something more than the writer and his problem. And so there it is, the solution already. He thinks to himself, in the whelming joy of conquest: I am glad to have had my chaotic youth, and even my Doubt, for it all gives me something to write about. The thought gives him further momentum. Such a thought has power, for in it all of life, even the Doubt, is subsumed: it turns reality on its hinge, and suddenly there is nothing in life that cannot be written about. He may create characters and their problems. He types a word. He types another word. His excitement mounts. Perfect.

There is a knocking on the door. That’s his wife, wanting something. He listens. Okay, he thinks, let me pause this, and he and gets up. But he frowns. He reaches down and he removes one of his socks. Yes, people are perfect, circumstances are not. There is only the writer and his problem. He opens the door; he glances apologetically at his wife. Her face is distressed, and he is glad for the sock, which he slips over the doorknob. Now the door is shut. Now he is back at his desk. The Doubt is again conquered. He will keep to his work, writing a little every day, without investment in the outcome; just so long as he’s writing. And he is. Look, even now. It does not matter what about: he is writing! The writer is perfect, and the knocks are like hammers from outside the universe of time.