“Learned or unlearned, we all must be scribbling.”
~ Horace

Picture this: you are in a meeting that could have been an email, and are beginning to daydream about that plan you had of becoming a successful author as a kid. Your hands find their way to the last page as you start detailing random aspects of your plot line and character arcs.

But wait! You also remember that one Anaïs Nin quote that inspires you every now and then, and you jot it down next to a hasty calculation you made of your monthly expenses the day before, lest you forget.

This isn’t an attempt at calling you out on your post-pandemic attention span which is growing shorter by the day (trust us, we understand), but a reminder that the human mind can be a swirling mood board, vibrantly flooded with ideas, and maybe, the best ones make it to the surface, i.e., that last page of our journals.

Doodling and scribblings, while done seemingly mindlessly, come so easily to us because that is when our mind is naturally drawn towards and focused on a thought, which might translate to the logic that our mind must have gained inspiration for and built that thought from somewhere. When we write quotes we appreciate or even pen down quick to-do lists for the next few hours, it might be our brain getting excited and creating a sense of urgency to get to that task or idea.

The last page is a quick substitute for when we may not be able to express our epiphanies to a friend, confide in our trusted personal journals, or even the Notes App on our phones. Owing to this assumption, it might be safe to further assume that it is our most vulnerable thoughts we might be setting in stone or ink.

The end of our journals is, in a way, a dreamland far away from the daily routine of writing down what we must, to pen down what we want. It is a space where the mind can be let loose, and not a single eye would be around to judge its process.

What do we do when we are left to our solitude? What comes with being comfortable with all parts of ourselves? The messy, unsure bits that may have been hiding in the shadows up until they found this blank little canvas? What would be the result of letting our creativity run wild? We create spaces where freedom is the only norm, and the only rule is creation.