Suppose Someone Gave You A Pen…

Suppose some­one gave you a pen — a sealed, solid-colored pen.

You couldn’t see how much ink it had. It might run dry after the first few ten­ta­tive words or last just long enough to cre­ate a mas­ter­piece (or sev­eral) that would last for­ever and make a dif­fer­ence in the scheme of things. You don’t know before you begin.

Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance!

Actu­ally, no rule of the game states you must do any­thing. Instead of pick­ing up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused.

But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?

Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so exten­sive that you never even got to the writ­ing?

Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, strug­gling to keep up with the twists and turns of the tor­rents of words that take you where they take you?

Would you write cau­tiously and care­fully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pre­tend or believe (or pre­tend to believe) that the pen will write for­ever and pro­ceed accordingly?

And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Mis­ery? Life? Death? Noth­ing? Everything?

Would you write to please just your­self? Or oth­ers? Or your­self by writ­ing for others?

Would your strokes be trem­blingly timid or bril­liantly bold? Fancy with a flour­ish or plain?

Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write. Would you sketch? Scrib­ble? Doo­dle or draw?

Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they?

There’s a lot to think about here, isn’t there?

Now, sup­pose some­one gave you a life…