Underground

Being underground makes one's brain think in ways it otherwise might not, given that aboveground one has access to the Internet, and TV, and endless distractions and a globe of information. When one is not in that process of receiving information it feels strange; like the tap turned on a filling tub, the sudden quiet is unsettling. The water immediately starts to feel tepid and you long for the rush of the flow once again.

Many books about writing share similar advice about inspiration. "Draw from experience" is a common refrain. "Write what you know." It's equivalent to saying: "Be interesting. Have and absorb experiences worth repeating or reconstituting into a salable narrative."

That statement feels particularly acute in the cold disconnected underground. Shielded even from the radiation of the sun, it feels impossible to write what you know down here. Underground all a writer has are the few artifacts around him. I can only scrape at the grime-covered tile walls, or rub my sole gently against the unyielding terrazzo. Unconnected from everything that is not here, it's feels as though the world might fade to non-existence up those stairs. I lean over the platform and gaze into the darkness of the subway tunnel. Is there anything beyond it?

The layers of rock and dirt looming above me block a billion buzzing signals, responsible for frying my childhood sense of solipsism. How can one believe he's alone when he is endlessly bombarded with novel images, and voices, and ideas, and noise. The world above is too loud. But in the dark underground, in wait for a subway train I can for a moment believe that there is nothing but darkness filling the tunnels around me. And that dimly-lit walls and floor and rail and grime is all mine. The what I know.