I have a moderate fear of heights. Above a certain level off the ground I start to feel anxious, and higher still I feel the need to stay as close to the surface as possible. It’s hard for me to stand on my feet—I’d rather get down on all fours. Not walk, but crawl. Yet I’ve never experienced paralysis. On those few higher mountains I’ve been to, I always somehow managed to crawl my way to where I intended.

It has something in common with writing. Except that in writing the fear concerns not the distance from the starting point, but the opposite—from the end. It’s strongest at the beginning. Though it sometimes strikes later too. The only way out is to get as close to the ground as possible, meaning the matter itself, to take in with your eyes the smallest possible fragment of it and focus on that. Not to think at all about the goal, about the time left, and so on. Today, now. Not in a moment, and certainly not tomorrow. There is no tomorrow.

My current horizon: