OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

The passion I lost — and the long road back.

This is the first true piece in this new space — and perhaps the most important one, for now. Not because it was difficult to write, but because it took courage and a great deal of willpower to return. Writing, which had always been my refuge, became a wounded territory. I lost my passion for it — or maybe the passion simply hid somewhere inside me, waiting to be found again. This is the raw account of that process. I don’t know where it will lead. But I had to start here.

I had a writer’s block like never before in my life. Even the one thing that once came naturally — writing — was silenced by life, by the world, for a while. But not completely — not even the most brutal of worlds can erase the essence of who we are.

Even the one thing that once came naturally — writing — was silenced by life, by the world, for a while.

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. First came the diaries — there were many; then came the confessions in the form of blogs — back in the early days of the blogosphere, when social media didn’t even exist in Mark Zuckerberg’s wildest dreams; later, copywriting and, almost simultaneously, “journalistic” writing — and I put that in quotes because: does journalism even still exist?

Confucius once said (or so the quote is attributed): “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I believed that for most of my existence; I fought with everything I had, for years, to make that phrase my truth.

I wrote for free, I wrote out of passion, I wrote until my fingers hurt; I wrote by hand, on typewriters, and in a rush; occasionally, I wrote with time on my side; I unravelled — often unknowingly — endless essays in my head, between one turn and another in bed.

I wrote for free, I wrote out of passion, I wrote until my fingers hurt

As the French writer Anaïs Nin put it, quite rightly: “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write. The culture has no use for it.” That is what a “writer” does, how they live — writing isn’t manufactured, it unfolds naturally, slips into your mind without asking. It’s a physiological need. It’s part of the self. It’s woven into being.

But — and there’s always a but — what life does, or rather what modern society has become frighteningly good at, is sabotaging passion. Trying to make a living from writing slowly corroded what was once an unconditional love for words. “Kill” might be too strong, because the essence remains. But with the rise of social media — and all that came tumbling after — reading became obsolete.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write. The culture has no use for it.

Anaïs Nin

The fast consumption of everything — including texts — became the norm in a world of lazy minds, shallow appetites and constant bombardment by empty novelty. Form overtook content. Likes, views, clickbait headlines.

I worked in newsrooms where editors shamelessly asked me to “spit out texts” — as if thinking were a luxury we couldn’t afford. In the brave, not-so-new world of social media, the mad flow of information left little space for depth. The aim became to publish something — anything — long before the aim to publish something truthful, or meaningful. An excess of information that leads only to misinformation — but that’s another story.

I worked in newsrooms where editors shamelessly asked me to “spit out texts”

Fortunately, there are still exceptions — publications like The New Yorker (a dream for any journalist who truly loves writing), Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Atlantic, even The Financial Times (I say even because anything with finance in the title always scared me) — where care for language and truth still, somehow, matters. But they — among a few others — remain exceptions to a rule that, today, feels utterly disheartening.

Like in human relationships, passion too can die — slowly — when the surrounding landscape does all it can to suffocate it. I know I’m writing on behalf of many others who love words and share this heartbreak.

And yet there’s more. Making a living from writing — at least here, in this little garden by the sea — is survival.*

It kills the spark of passion — like a marriage that puts sex to one side.

But those who write, always end up writing — in spite of it all. Writing is, by nature, a writer’s artform; but it is also their sanctuary. When the world weighs heavy, when the pain becomes sharp, the writer turns to their most intimate tool: putting onto paper whatever their soul can no longer carry alone. Writing becomes a defence mechanism — I write, therefore I release the pain.

“And then, I believe, I may finally use the full stop. There’s something good about a full stop. It lets the soul breathe more freely — breathe with relief. It’s where the sigh finds its strength. Where the breath caught in the throat, choked by the heart, finally lets go. And then I suffer less. I suffer, but I’m no longer alone. I’ve shared it with someone — someone I don’t even know. And so, someone else suffers with me.

Maybe no one even reads me. Still, by setting it down, I no longer carry it alone. It’s there now — outside me. Let someone take it, for I’ve made it their own.

And I no longer care. I only know that the pain no longer travels through my gut, no longer clogs me up — no longer suffocates, no longer binds me in love… It breathes. It leaves. It grieves — then frees”.

— Excerpt from my personal blog, many, many years ago, when the blogosphere was booming.

Between 2021 and 2024, during a particularly difficult time in my life, I kept a diary that — while not replacing my psychiatrist — proved to be a lifeline in my darkest moments. Times when simply existing became almost unbearable, and only two options remained: either write the pain, or let it take over everything.

And so, almost without noticing, I realised: some spark had stayed lit. Perhaps it had never gone out. Writing had returned as my most loyal companion — my chosen tool for facing life in all its nuance. The writing that lives inside a writer never truly dies, because it is part of them. It’s like a vital organ: it supports, it steadies, it keeps them alive.

Times when simply existing became almost unbearable, and only two options remained: either write the pain, or let it take over everything.

But what good is a vital organ, when the world no longer recognises the vital signs?

Writing was never the problem. The problem is that the world has forgotten how to read — truly read. It has traded words for digital pats on the back, and texts for trends.
I keep writing, because it’s what I know how to do.
The rest is just digital noise.

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* In Lisbon, a single person needs €1,800–€2,400 monthly for essentials (Portugal Wizard, Numbeo), while the average journalist earns around €1,020 net (Glassdoor). In the US, journalists at The New York Times earn roughly $101,000 per year, rising to $103,000 in New York City (Glassdoor), offering a more comfortable financial situation despite high living costs.

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Addendum — A necessary parenthesis

Not long ago, I came across an interview with the writer Paul Auster — who left us in 2024 — in which he said, with the disarming bluntness of those who have seen too much, that the world owes nothing to those who write. That writing is a choice — and, let’s be honest, a dreadful one. That if he had to give young people any advice, it would be simply:
“Don’t write.”
Because no one asked you to.
Because no one is waiting.
Because the book doesn’t have to be published, nor your pain turned into a footnote.
And because no one — truly no one — has to make a living from writing. It just doesn’t work that way.

At the time, I heard that and thought: Right. Thanks for the tenderness, Paul. But I didn’t argue. After all, few things are as universal among writers as the discomfort of recognising yourself in what irritates you.

The truth is, the world doesn’t owe us readers, attention, publication — let alone recognition. Writing is a choice made in spite of everything: the loneliness, the obscurity, the bills.

And still — I write.
Not because the world asks. But because I don’t know how to stay silent.

I do believe that writers write, first and foremost, for themselves — out of necessity, because writing simply happens to them, as I’ve unfolded earlier in this piece.

But I also find it hypocritical to claim that the writer doesn’t want a stage. If that were the case, they’d keep it to themselves.

I write a great deal for myself — and what I don’t wish to share, I keep. But I also write to share with the world thoughts, sensations, experiences that perhaps not everyone can put into words — or even grasp.

Auster was absolutely right.
But this is the parenthesis.