The Place from Which Words Come - A Philosophical Essay

Written by Benjamin Fouché

I have known it to be quite true that the mind is the loudest at night.  And I dare say many would agree that this sentiment is hauntingly accurate.  For when the cacophony of daily sounds finally subsides; and the bright radiance that is the sun sinks below the horizon; and the birds deaden within their nests; and the bustle from the streets dissipates; and the neighboring souls retire to their beds, sinking into the haziness of sleep—it seems that those of us who reluctantly remain awake are cognizant of many sounds.  Yet these sounds seem to be suppressed during the day.  But, when the world around us slumbers—and our eyes gaze upon the ceiling through the darkness of our rooms—we hear them.  What are they, you might ask?  They are many things.  Memories.  Fears.  Doubts.  Regrets.  Wishes.  And a thousand of other things.

But to simply remain staring and pondering in the duskiness is possibly no different from subjecting oneself to perpetual torment.  Indeed, if nothing is done about these specters of the mind—especially the formidable ones—they will vanquish us one sliver of sanity at a time.  Then, after years and decades pass, our hearts and minds will be noticeably marred and eroded.  I say this not to be melodramatic, but because this is something I have lived with for far too long.  And I’m certain many writers can relate.  After all, writers are often observant creatures.  They scrutinize and interpret the world around them, and then reinterpret and illustrate what they know into something that only a reader’s imagination may observe.  It certainly makes the human experience far more intriguing. 

Yet the price one pays for noticing, discerning, and retaining even the seemingly insignificant details of life is absurdly high—sometimes even grave.  This means both enjoyable and dreadful memories reside within our minds, ever-present.  Yet despite pushing the bad ones away and endeavoring to forget them, we may not recognize that they merely linger on out of sight during the day.  But at night—especially when we are awake—they come out to remind us of their multiplying legions.  We then stare at the ceiling—seeing not the ceiling, but all of these thoughts.  And listening, we hear not the silence, but the sounds of our grim reveries.  We remember.  We are afraid.  We doubt others and ourselves.  We regret and wish.  We yearn.  And as this foreboding wave rises from the sea, we seem to stand all alone on a shore—awaiting the black waters and our inexorable drowning.

Even so, such a fate is not necessary.  Nor is it ‘inexorable.’  This is the moment when the lights should be turned on and we ought to throw ourselves out of bed.  This is the moment where we should remind ourselves that we are still alive and no such wave actually exists!  ‘Then,’ you might ask, ‘what are we to do at this time?’  The answer is to—whether penned or typed—WRITE.  It may be 9:00 pm.  It could be 11:00 pm.  Possibly even 12:00 or 3:00 am.  Regardless of the time, there is no reason to remain awake in our darkened rooms, tortured, tossing, and turning.  Sometimes, the remedy to such melancholies and anxieties is to sit down and travel to whatever distant realms our imagination leads us to.  From there, we may realize that these places, too, are inhabited by characters—characters who are surprisingly not so different from us. 

Sometimes the predicaments in which these imaginary figures find themselves may be quite extraordinary or unbelievable.  And yet, is not life itself (or the entirety of the world for that matter) unbelievable?  For instance, here you now exist—breathing the very air around you, reading this sentence, and living in this precise moment.  Likewise, your characters dwell within their own worlds and exist within their own moments of every paragraph, sentence, word, and syllable.  From the stirrings of your mind, heart, and soul, they were born.  And now, through the symbols of language, you have opened a window into their own story.  Doubt not, for this phantasmagoric vista can illustrate conflicts, loves, sufferings, adventures, and victories beyond our own empirical senses.  And you—yes, you, reader; whoever you may be—possess the ability to open this window and create this world. 

As a writer, you can seize every specter residing in your mind.  The memories, regrets, yearnings, doubts, and fears—all can become the coals that fuel the fires of your creative furnace.  These great journeys that we call ‘fiction’ share with others an experience constructed from both fantasy and reality.  Through your words, doorways open.  And sometimes these doorways are paradoxically mirrors.  In them, we see different worlds, but sometimes we may even see our own.  What is the result?  It is a voyage to somewhere else, but also an examination of the real story we call ‘life.’  Conflicts, adversaries, and tragedies all transpire within our lives at some point or another.  For loss, struggle, and hardship are certainly no strangers to us. 

Yet hope, joy, and affection are equally undeniable in their existence.  And knowing this, we take what we have known to be good and bad in this life and merge it with the fantastical.  The result is a realm to which we escape, but also a realm from which we discern meaning and collective experiences.  Sometimes, if the journey is quite exceptional, readers may never again be the same.  Such is the mystery and beauty of words and writing.  We can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch what they create—yet they are not tangibly present.  Like some distant apparition, they appear before us—only to dissolve once the experience has long-subsided.  But undoubtedly, we remember them always.  This is perhaps the greatest gift of fiction.  It is something that touches the spirit in ways that nothing else truly can.

In the end, it is up to us writers to make the choice as to how we handle the perturbing midnight thoughts that overwhelm us.  Either we allow these prowling anxieties to call to us and inflict a thousand tossing-and-turnings in bed or we seize the night and turn our millions of straying thoughts into something meaningful.  The choice is yours.