Writing the first word takes an exceptional degree of effort. The second sentence flows easier, like a thoughtless response to some question posed. Moving on to the third sentence is a breeze, as if you had always been writing, as if a moment before you hadn’t dreaded opening that new word document, the blinking cursor mocking your incapacitation to craft a coherent phrase.

As you go on, the thoughts become easier to put into words, but not necessarily linearly. At times, you become bogged down recalling le mot parfait, becoming acutely aware that what you’ve planned to write today might yet be scrutinized by the Public’s harsh gaze. In other cases, something in your periphery distracts you and you consider whether your time ought better be spent checking whether that onion you bought the other day is still suitable for the evening meal.

But you also know that if you’ve gotten this far, if you’ve made it to the third paragraph, you won today, you resisted, you pushed against the comforting defaults and struck out for creative pastures. The quality of your work matters certainly, but less than its existence on the page. The insights brewing in your head have no soil in which to take root if you fail to lift the pen to paper, if you fail to articulate them in legible script.

To derive a sense of urgency to write, consider this: Your unwritten thoughts die with you. That brilliant notion you had the other day on that walk overlooking that scorched canyon will not persist in the world without your consciousness unless you write it down. You might well possess the idea that inspires the movement to end world hunger and yet if you do not resist the perpetual desire for comfort, millions will continue to starve. The stakes to write could certainly not be higher.

You owe it to the world to share what you have learned. You owe it to yourself to fulfill your potential. The greatest waste in all the world is living below your potential. Do not go gentle into that good night. Write write against the dying of the light.