It is better to write something than nothing at all. Once you accept that what you write has most likely been written before, many – many times, then whatever you write will seem less significant and less in need of perfection. It’s not that your words are not important and shouldn’t be written with care if you are able to, it is merely an equation of what matters more.

To write is more important than what you write because it means that you are walking. To wear shoes while you’re walking would be the quality of your writing topics, the standard of the shoes would be quality and skill with which you write, and where you walk or run would be the genres you choose.

What all this means is this: you can go anywhere you want and end up in the most beautiful or unusual of places with or without shoes. You don’t need shoes.

However, to have the appropriate shoes for your terrain will always have immediate benefits such as enjoying far less struggle to figure out how to get to where you want to go – a skilled writer would find it a lot easier to convey themselves articulately and eloquently. At least, that is my personal belief. I am not a skilled writer yet, and perhaps I never will be. Who can tell? Therefore, when I do write, it often takes great effort to say what I want to say the way I want to say it. See? I know nothing about proper grammar, and I get confused between Afrikaans writing and English. Clearly. I know nothing. Yet. That’s alright with me, because as long as I am trying and the more often I try, the more likely I am to learn what I need to along the way.

To be active in any way you can is a gift. It truly, truly is.

If you’ve ever had a long period in your life when couldn’t move in your mind, when depression and anxiety or stress have rendered you an invalid in your own heart, then you’ll understand how precious the moments are when you are able to be active in your mind and when you can move freely around in your brain without having to knock on your own doors and be told that you cannot come in.

It’s a bloody terrible thing to be so restricted in your own mind and soul, that you feel you even need permission to think clearly, without the constant yelling in your head.

This is why I believe without a doubt that it is better to write something than nothing at all.

Right now, I am barefooted, but at least I am walking. I think that I shall take a stroll around a block or two. The pavement might be hard on my feet, but maybe I’ll pass by a shop that sells cheap shoes on the way?