November 23, 2021

Noble friend,

I have recently walked past the park we used to sit and talk after a long day of work. I do not complain about that job. It was basic work, but we ate of the best meat everyday. My workplace, hidden in the depths of the restaurant's lounge, was a mandatory stop for all the waiters, almost like a VIP area. Right on that spot, we used to fill ourselves to the brim with a true feast.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I miss those days.

In regards to the park, everything looked exactly the same, and in two years, I think the only change was your stupid decision of going to another country.

I sat on the same spot, on that wooden bench with a view to the avenue and the parliment gardens.

I remember a specific night when we were returning from our shift at the restaurant. Winter still hadn't started, but Autumn was almost done and the cold wind blew.

It was still early, no later than 11:45pm. For those who, sometimes, work until 1:30am, we felt advantageous. We still had some time to sit and talk before the cup got too cold and tiredness grabbed us by the eyelids.

Having a talk about writing and literature with a full belly and still arrive home early? A cup of coffee to warm body and soul and the day would be perfect.

I remember that on that day we talked specifically about the lack of discipline and regularity that used to affect us.

Both, a narrator and a poet, we accumulated in our homes tons and tons of used paper. Filled papers from top to bottom with words that would never see the daylight.

The problem was not lack of ideas. No, ideas we had plenty. What we lacked was the discipline to take those ideas and bring them to life.

They died, poor things, for nothing, like plant in a dry plantpot. Lost like dry leaves, nearly breaking, thrown out in some corner and through an unseen wind, blown far away. Not phisicaly, phisicaly they were still there, but already meant near to nothing.

Words after being abbandoned due to lack of regularity become strange, unrecognizeable, unpersonal. They wouldn't match in any way with what we had in our mind an instant later. I have to this day boxes and boxes of scribbled paper that say nothing aside from the fact that there was someone obviously desperate to write.

At some point in our talk I said: 'We just need to sit down and write'.

How something so simple, and worse, something that we really wished to do, could be so difficult to the point of leaving us innactive for days on end?

I repeated like a sacred mantra.

'I just need to sit down and write.'

Its obvious that it was all in vain, we are still here, two, three years after and in the same situation.

We lacked maturity, dear friend. Maturity and discipline.

To think we could do it with pure will was too naive.

Life has been good to me, but after Thirty, and one day you will get there, you will notice that something inside of you changed.

At Thirty it feels like your packaging has finaly had its security seal broken. That air started to escape. You will have a lot, I hope to God, a lot of time left, but something essential has changed.

The notion of the end, that almost never exists before Thirty, out of a sudden is there. The notion that time is the most precious currency becomes so cumbersome that the only way to hold it together is through the exhausting work at whatever it is that makes you feel good and not in what you like.

Sitting down to write everyday, even though it is what I love, it causes in me physical pain almost. It is like a brutal fight against a wild animal that absolutely does not want to be tamed.

Before Thirty I thought that one day that animal would simply give up and allow itself to be tamed by a gentle hand. Now, at Thirty, I fight him everyday with the certainty that if he is left alone, sooner or later he will devour me in the form of a useless life.

Its needed maturity, discipline and hardwork.

If I can ask you something, it is for you not to be like me, do not wait until Thirty. The illusion of immortality that you still have makes you believe faithfuly that this wild animal will never devour you, and that, my friend, is a huge advantage to who wants to win.

Not knowing you can be defeated.

I hope that you are well and that the constant rain hasn't stiffen your fingers.