Scribo ergo sum?

Lying awake tonight, I realized I cannot recall the last time I wrote. I don't mean the writing I have been doing the past months on my thesis, or the writing for the zine; when you force your fingers upon the keys of your keyboard, trying to make sense of it all, trying to create something that is 'original', something intelligent. Something new.
What I mean is the writing that is uninhibited, when you press the dry pencil against the paper and let your hand find its way; without prejudice from the mind, without interference.
I don't think I have ever asked myself why I write, or why I want to write. I don't consider myself a writer, and yet I want to become one. Writing is want I want to do; it is what I am doing right now, as I try to finish my thesis in order to obtain my degree in Art History; and it is what I will be doing in three weeks, when I go to Prague to make a travel guide. And it is what I want to do in the future, more than anything else. But while aiming for the creative writing, the process of conceptualizing something that is 'original', something intelligent, something new, I forget the importance of the unrestrained writing; the dry pencil against the paper.

The past few weeks, I can't seem to forget something I read in an interview with Saul Bellow (1915-2005), the much appraised American writer who won the Nobel prize in 1976 for his novel Humboldt's Gift. In the interview Bellow talks about his deep interest in anthroposophy, and the influence this has had on his writing. At a certain moment, the interviewer describes how Bellow comes walking back into the room after making tea, and stands still to exchange a long look with his visitor, in silence. Bellow then says: "If two people stand facing each other, they see each others physical bodies. That is important. That is real. If a writer treats the physical things as insignificant, and ignores what his eyes see and his ears hear, than nothing that he writes can be of any importance."
These words have struck me, and I have read those lines again and again. To me, they are true. If one does not acknowledge the most basic things around and inside him, than anything beyond that; anything that is supposed to be original, intelligent, or new, is worthless.

Maybe my obsession with this specific phrase means that I should first acknowledge the physical reality around and inside myself, before I try to create anything beyond that. I must first pick up the pencil and press it against the paper, before I do anything else.

Good night.