There’s a strange, foreign kind of silence that comes when you’ve forgotten how to create. When staring at a blank page no longer feels like a place of opportunity and magic, but rather a place for ideas to start—and then immediately die.
I haven’t had much to say lately. My writing, once so natural, now feels forced and unfamiliar.
For so long, I’ve believed that in order to write—and to write well—I needed a physical outlet. I needed to be outside in nature, moving my body, allowing ideas to flow through me and materialize.
But the belief that I can’t formulate ideas unless I’m running has held me back—not only from writing new pieces but also from finishing old ones. I haven’t been as courageous as I once was, diving into the unknown, exploring new topics, and pushing myself to try new things.
Instead, I’ve been playing it safe, mostly writing about my injuries this year. While this has provided an outlet, I’ve grown bored of the topic. It feels like my “poor me” song is on repeat—not just in my writing, but in my conversations with the people closest to me.
Much of what I write comes from personal experience, but life has felt a bit blasé lately. I’m still recovering after re-injuring myself in mid-September, which means no running for the foreseeable future. I’m not pursuing any big, meaningful goals at the moment. My days have been consumed by work, and not the creative kind.
Life has become somewhat of a shell: I go through the motions, end each day without any sense of meaningful accomplishment.
A New Space
Recently, I moved in with my fiancé to a beautiful spot on the beach. We no longer live in a cramped shoebox; we have more space to create and to live. My partner is an artist—someone who embodies the creative spirit. Yet, despite being surrounded by inspiration, I’ve been writing with a blank.
Over the few weeks, I’ve started a handful of articles, written a few sentences—maybe a paragraph—then moved on to something else. Once I check my email, my creativity is killed for the day. There’s no going back to the state of deep concentration required to write.
My mind is now full of frenetic thoughts: clients I need to respond to, tasks I need to get to, and a dozen other distractions. I crave the satisfaction of finishing and publishing a piece of writing, but I’m stuck in a cycle of false starts, with no conclusions.
Morning Flow
My best writing has always come from long stretches of concentration—during the early morning hours when it’s still dark and the world is quiet. My phone is on airplane mode, my inbox is closed, and it’s just me and the blank page. This was once a comforting and magical time of day for me. But now, the blank page has become a place of dread and self-torment.
Despite having an ideal writing setup, deep within my subconscious, I continue to hold the belief that if I can’t run, I can’t write (at least, not well).
But I don’t know when I’ll run again. When I rushed back into it last time, things didn’t go well for me.
I want to write. I want to share. But I need to discover a new way to continue my practice, and unlearn that running is a necessity for good writing.
Resist or Adapt
As winter creeps around the corner and the days grow shorter, I’m trying to find a new rhythm.
Life has forced me into a new direction this year—one where I’ve had to either adapt or sink deeper into my suffering by resisting my current reality.
When I lost running, I felt like I lost my creativity, my ability to write, and my self-discipline. In the wake of 2024 lies the carnage of unfinished projects and goals. I’ve achieved exactly zero things I wanted to accomplish this year, and it’s put my self-confidence through the wringer. I’ve been forced to reflect on who I am without my ongoing list of goals and accomplishments; I’ve had to learn to just be.
A few years ago, I wrote a piece titled Who You Are is Not What You Do. I fervently argued that who you are as a person is complete in itself, regardless of the hobbies you engage in, the career you pursue, or the successes or failures you experience. Externals don’t define you.
Of course, I believed my sage wisdom wholeheartedly when I could still run and spend hours writing in the mornings. Creative flow was abundant, and I felt grounded in who I was. But when running was suddenly taken from me, my so-called wisdom flew out the window.
We can prepare and meditate on illness, injury, or death, thinking we’ve adequately prepared to face whatever hardship comes our way, but when the time comes and one of life’s vicissitudes takes us by storm, all sagacity is lost. As Emil Cioran wrote, “Man accepts death but not the hour of his death. To die any time, except when one has to die.”
A few years ago, I explored the concept of “identity-based habits” in my writing. This concept, popularized by James Clear in Atomic Habits, states that we’re more likely to commit to regular action if what we do is tied to our identity. But there’s a risk in this approach: tying your identity to something outside yourself is a volatile and unpredictable way to live.
For a long time, I tied my running streak to my identity. It gave me a sense of purpose, meaning, and distinction. But by year four, I started to question whether it was still serving me. Running everyday enforced rigidity, interfering with my relationships and holding me back from life experiences. I came to the conclusion back then that when my run streak ended, I would be okay with it.
When the time came to make the decision to end my streak in March of this year, I felt calm and stoic for a little while. But then the injuries took away my ability to walk, and even stand for shorter periods.
It wasn’t even about running anymore. I just wanted some semblance of my normal life back.
I wanted to freely choose the activities I wanted to do. I wanted to engage in my former creative process, and see some tangible results. For much of this year, I’ve been in a period of waiting; waiting for my injuries to heal, waiting to run again, waiting for my creativity to return, waiting for ideas to come to me.
The blank page continues to torment, rather than inspire.
The Choice
I now have a choice to make.
Do I wait around until I can run again, maintaining the belief that running is necessary to help me write well? Or do I show up to the blank page, to my practice, and continue forward?
For now, I’m choosing to write with a blank—sans running—and see where it leads.
Because as writers know, magic occurs only when we show up–when we have that blank page to stare at. We can choose to flee the discomfort of the blank page–checking our phone or email–or we can sit in our discomfort, explore the unknown, and see what happens.
You can write without running… I think proof is in the pudding here. And, personally, I very much enjoy reading you (even though often long after things get published). I hope the blank page turns into a space for creativity again. If you keep showing up to write, I promise I’ll keep showing up to read.