Writing
Comfortable At Being Uncomfortable
I’m sat silently, with just a coffee for company.
The sun is still rising, yet it is already baking my skin. A shimmer dances across the dark blue sea separating this Greek island from the next. Every so often, a gentle breeze carries the scent of a nearby fig tree. Fresh, sweet and quietly complex.
I’m sat silently, with just a coffee for company.
The sun is still rising, yet it is already baking my skin. A shimmer dances across the dark blue sea separating this Greek island from the next. Every so often, a gentle breeze carries the scent of a nearby fig tree. Fresh, sweet and subtly complex.
The moment kickstarts a procession of thoughts and feelings. A scene of simplicity. A feeling of pure contentment. I sit there and take it all in.
Yet the longer I do, the more guilt begins to creep in.
Why am I not doing something with this? Surely this is the perfect moment to write. To capture the feeling while it’s fresh. To turn it into words before it slips away.
Sunrise in Sifnos.
But I don’t.
For once, I simply let the moment exist. No notebook. No camera. No attempt to pin it down. I trust that if it truly matters, it will find its way back to me.
And it does.
A month later, I spray a little Fico di Amalfi by Acqua di Parma onto my wrist. Instantly, I’m back on that sunny terrace in Sifnos. The warmth on my skin. The sea stretching towards the horizon. The scent of the fig tree drifting across the morning breeze.
One small action unlocks an entire place.
It made me realise that I’d been wrong to feel guilty. In fact, I’d been comfortable doing something I’d become increasingly uncomfortable with.
Nothing.
Somewhere along the way, I’d started believing that meaningful moments needed immediate output. A photograph. A paragraph. A post.
Social media doesn’t help. It rewards immediacy, volume and certainty. In many ways, it encourages instant gratification. Quickly produced, quickly consumed, quickly forgotten. The platforms themselves become algorithmic fast food, endlessly serving the next thing before we’ve had chance to properly digest the last.
Yet life rarely reveals itself that quickly.
The moments that shape us often need time to settle. To become memories before they become stories.
Of course, this isn’t really about social media. It’s a habit that seems to have crept into much of modern life. Work rewards constant productivity, even if it doesn’t really serve a goal. Creativity is often measured by consistency of output rather than depth of thought. Even rest can begin to feel like something that needs to be justified.
The pressure isn’t always external. Much of the time, it’s one we place upon ourselves.
A jammy fig
Sitting on that terrace in Sifnos, I wasn’t avoiding creativity. I was making space for it. The words simply hadn’t arrived yet.
Looking back, I wonder what would have happened had I reached straight for my notebook. Would that morning have felt quite so real today? Or would I have interrupted it before I’d properly lived it?
Perhaps not every meaningful moment needs to become something immediately. Perhaps the most creative thing we can do is leave it alone for a while, trusting that it will return when it’s ready.
Just as the scent of fig did.
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I’m sat silently, with just a coffee for company.
The sun is still rising, yet it is already baking my skin. A shimmer dances across the dark blue sea separating this Greek island from the next. Every so often, a gentle breeze carries the scent of a nearby fig tree. Fresh, sweet and quietly complex.