The Library is a Church

and so is writing

I had intended to write today and I know that if I leave the library without doing so I’ll consider my trip here to be a failure. I come here mostly for the vibes. It’s quiet and studious and there’s this grounded quality of un-pretention as everyone goes about learning in their own way.

The library is a church. I’ve written about this before, but I can’t remember in which notebook. Here, ideally, I’ll divide my time between both reading and writing, but today reading feels more interesting. I feel as though I’m allowing myself to be tugged away into someone else’s daydream. Here on the blog, I’m settling into the daydream of my own mind. It seems counter-intuitive that writing, writing, writing about my thoughts and perceptions would help loosen their grip on me, but it does. Writing clears my mind and it’s for this reason that I have to keep writing.

Maybe I postponed reading in the park and re-opened my laptop, not because I would consider not writing to be a failure, but because I know deeply that I need to write in order to feel okay. Ever since my first journal entry, I’ve always felt like I’m writing for audience. That’s what technically what’s happening here on Substack, but the audience I’m talking about is more hypothetical than anything.

I’m writing for the potential of an audience. By writing I’m stepping into an amphitheater, whether it’s empty or filled with people doesn’t feel significant to me right now; what matters is that I’m on the stage.