EXERCISE — WHY I DON’T WRITE

I don’t write because I’m not a writer nor a scholar. So I have no reason to write. I don’t write because I have no readers. I don’t write because I’m afraid that anyone who reads what I write will start laughing will judge me will criticize my obvious incompetence or worse still will find my writing banal and boring. I don’t write because everything comes easily to S. and everything comes incredibly hard to me. I don’t write because I don’t have the ability to conceive a long-term project and devote myself to it consistently. I don’t write because I get bored I get bored with myself and with my projects which I find brilliant for a few days and then I realize are banal and lead nowhere. I don’t write because I don’t want R. to discover or to have confirmation that I am incompetent someone who never finishes anything or worse someone who if he does finish something ends up producing a mediocre result.

I don’t write because I don’t want it to get around that I’m writing otherwise expectations would be created and I don’t want to be surrounded by any kind of expectation. I don’t write because I can’t concentrate because I’m surrounded by an almost constant background noise of television or people playing video games. I don’t write because I can’t build a writing-friendly environment around myself even though I live in a large house. I don’t write because the excuse of a noisy environment and the impossibility of concentrating is perfect for allowing me not to take responsibility for writing something.

I don’t write because notifications arrive on my phone and I think they’re something important but then it’s always and only the parents’ chat advertising a charitable initiative I won’t be able to take part in. I don’t write because I’m afraid of hurting someone. I don’t write because I wouldn’t be able to stand criticism. I don’t write because I’m cynical enough to think that even if I did write something I like which is very difficult I would still have no way of getting it to someone capable of publishing it.

I don’t write because B. writes with irony and intelligence C. writes beautiful books based on long and detailed research L. wrote an autobiography about the harshness of her adolescence A. has written many beautiful books and every time I thought she had written her best one she wrote another and it was even better. Even N. managed to write two books but her standards of satisfaction are decidedly lower than mine. I don’t write because I’m never satisfied with what I do because I always think I haven’t worked well enough that I’m not as good as others that I haven’t produced the best possible version of what I’ve done.

I don’t write because I consider myself a mediocre person who hasn’t studied enough and I always think I write things that somehow concern my own life but I know my life has nothing interesting for others and why it ever should is unclear. I don’t write because I’m surrounded by extremely talented people who succeed in what they do who have a thousand ideas and projects and in front of whom I am incompetent. I don’t write because I work as a film editor. I don’t write because a long time ago writing was my passion but now when I write I lack words I make incredibly complicated sentences that lead nowhere and I use an excessive number of adverbs.

Maybe I don’t write because I like writing so much that if it were to become a job I probably wouldn’t like it anymore just as is happening with cinema. I don’t write because if I write and actually manage to concentrate for real at a certain point it becomes hypnotic and if the tap truly opens I have no idea what might come out nor how it might come out. I don’t write because now I’m writing but I should be editing scene 55 and it’s always like this every time I want to write I have something else to do and often it’s just a justification for not writing but just as often it’s the pure truth and this makes me suffer.

I don’t write because I always dreamed of being a great writer a great journalist a great photographer in short a great collector and storyteller of human stories but in the end I took another path perhaps thinking that cinema after all is also storytelling yet the further I go the more I would like to go back to something technically simple that can be done in solitude and or autonomously. I don’t write because sometimes it seems to me that I’ve written a lot and then I look at how much I’ve written and it’s only a few lines.

I don’t write because I’ve read thousands of books but when I try to write something that isn’t a diary I go into crisis just thinking about which point of view I should use which tense would be right for the story I want to tell and I even wonder how one correctly formats dialogue putting the text in quotation marks or using dashes. I don’t write because if I truly wrote I would have no obligations and no priorities other than those I give myself and all this freedom would be wonderful but unbearable to manage and perhaps it would kill me.

I don’t write because I am 48 years old and I have never seriously written in my life and it seems to me that at 48 the game is over and if I haven’t written anything until now why should I write something meaningful right now. I’m surrounded by people younger than me for whom everything comes easily people more creative than me more decisive and faster than me. People who can write the project for a film or a documentary in two days using artificial intelligence cleverly or not using it at all but in any case managing to do what needs to be done quickly and extremely effectively. And I can’t do it maybe I couldn’t even when I was their age let alone now.

I don’t write because I feel old and ridiculous in front of the young inexperienced and superficial in front of those older than me ignorant and lacking any concreteness in front of those who are my age. I don’t write because I’m afraid I’m afraid in many aspects of my existence and I’m sick and tired of being afraid of everything and everyone. And I’m sick and tired of being perfectly aware that it is fear that prevents me from living as I would like and it is fear that prevents me from writing.

I don’t write because I’m afraid. I don’t write because I’m afraid. I don’t write. Because. I am afraid.