Write down the thoughts and even more, write down a specific line. If you don't, it'll fly away forever.
Interpretation
Recording thoughts prevents them from being forgotten.
Margaret Atwood emphasizes the importance of writing down one's thoughts and ideas, suggesting that if they are not documented, they may be lost forever. This reinforces the notion that capturing our insights and reflections is crucial for personal growth and creativity.
In practice
During a workshop on creativity, I shared this quote to inspire participants to journal their thoughts.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
The one to distrust is the person who never makes a mistake, never commits a blunder, never fails in what he tries to do. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried and the trivial.
Surrender comes when you no longer ask, 'Why is this happening to me?'
Wait for the idea. It may not come at first, but you must be patient, never doubting, waiting in faith. It will come.
Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying.
You have to talk about mistakes and then talk about what you have learned and how to move forward. You acknowledge missteps right away, you deal with them, and you move ahead.
Until you make peace with your difficult memories, that pain will continue to bleed into your current and future experiences.
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