Sun 17 May 2026

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I wrote previously about my experience of a "Socratic Sign" as a student: how my experience of wonder and exhilaration in my studies kept me going through the relative stress and difficulty of that experience.

Of course, I took a bit of artistic license in describing it as a "Socratic Sign," since the sign Socrates described was actually a kind of warning to stop, rather than a direct encouragement to continue a course of action.

In my recent writing endeavours, however, I've felt a new kind of Socratic Sign, more like the original. As I prepare to tackle a difficult and complex or controversial subject, and as I start to feel the creative juices begin to flow, it will at times just suddenly stop and revert. The launch gets scrubbed at T minus twenty seconds and I find myself just sitting there, wondering what happened.

Now, writer's block is nothing new, and it may indeed be foolhardy to try to prescribe greater meaning (let alone Divine intervention) to it. But I still think at the very least it is a solid indicator of a lack of clarity and conviction in the subject matter, and an invitation to shelve the subject and come back to it later after having given it more time to "stew" in the spiritual "plumbing" of the writer.

And so, dear writer, if you feel the old Vaudeville Hook gently tugging at your neck, maybe put it in your WIP pile for a bit. Chew on the subject for a while, publish a few simpler, easier posts, and revisit it when you feel the clarity and/or conviction/"unction" revisiting you. :)

Category: Writing Tagged: Humor Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Productivity Writing