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Eureka
By Eugenia Gallardo
They say that many who have shouted eureka! finding something they desperately sought, they achieved it in the humbling, everyday act of taking a shower or soaking in a bathtub. The explanation is that when we let go of the state of despair, the mind is released and finds itself without effort, that is, in freedom. Sometimes when we write, we are in the rush to find an answer: how do I tell this story? Where do I begin? Do I put everything I can think of or do I choose only the most interesting? How do I imagine my reader? Do I advance something from the end so they don’t get bored or do I keep it to myself? And so, with a head full of doubts, one faces a blank page. And nothing comes out to write. And one gets frustrated. Then arrange those questions and possible answers in an outline. And the scheme is so beautiful that it could be used for a master class… but the story is not born. And one gets confused. That is just the time to bathe.
I use bathing here as an explanatory resource: it may be that you literally don’t bathe. It might be going for a walk, or quieting down to bake cookies, or meticulously arranging a drawer. What it is about is letting go of the control frenzy and letting it do its thing. And his thing (of the mind that flows freely) is to organize, rationalize, intuit, connect, remember, project, recreate, release, take, invent, break down, discover a jewel in the trash. Eureka! The undemanding mind found the jewel in the trash and hands it to us neat and clean so that we can begin our story. I tell you that he will take his way solving practical issues (all those questions we had), but that he will not get lost because in the “eureka moment” his spirit rebelled. That spirit, which is felt as an impetus, as a mandate, is what sustains us in the task and is responsible for the joy that we feel in the material act of composing a certain text.
Eugenia Gallardo
November 22, 2022
Raleigh NC
