When You Don't Know What to Say

 

 I have experienced that unsettling feeling of powerlessness, those moments in life when you simply do not know what to say or do. It can happen in conversation, in writing, or even when faced with a decision. You search deep inside your mind for thoughts, ideas, anything at all to share, but all you encounter is silence. It doesn’t matter how hard you try; your imagination remains blank, as though a heavy curtain has been drawn across your creativity.

At first, you tell yourself that it’s temporary, that any moment something will come. But the longer it lasts, the more frustration creeps in. The emptiness begins to spread, occupying the whole mental space where words and images should live. You keep reaching for something or anything to say, but the vacuum only deepens.

This silence begins to feel heavy, even depressing, as if your ability to create has quietly slipped away. You start to wonder if it’s more than just a momentary lapse. What if I’ve lost my touch? The thought can be more paralyzing than the silence itself.

Then the practical voice inside you speaks up: There must be a solution for this. You imagine that your mind should have a plan for moments like this, a kind of “what-to-do” list. Perhaps step one would be to relax, step two to brainstorm, step three to begin. But in reality, nothing on that imaginary list works. The blank page stares back at you, wordless and unmoving, while you sit suspended between thought and expression, waiting for inspiration to return.

In one of these moments, I decided to stop forcing it. I reached for a book I had started reading a few days earlier: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan W. Watts. I had no intention of using it to “fix” my mental block; I simply wanted to distract myself from the frustration. Yet, as I read, something unexpected happened.

Watts was exploring the relationship between consciousness and nature, describing them not as separate entities in conflict, but as two aspects of the same reality. This perspective, in its depth and simplicity, caught my attention. It was not even directly related to what I had been struggling to write about. But it was enough to nudge my mind awake.

Suddenly, ideas began to move, quietly at first, then in a steady stream. I found myself naming several topics I might write about or discuss. They came almost too quickly, as if a door had been opened and thoughts that had been patiently waiting on the other side rushed in all at once.

My demeanor shifted almost instantly. Moments earlier, I had been frustrated and discouraged; now I felt hopeful and energized. The question was no longer What can I say? But which of these ideas should I choose?

This sudden change made me curious about the mind’s selectivity. How could reading just two pages on a subject unrelated to my original goal lead to hundreds of possible ideas? Why would my brain unlock creativity in one direction when I had been pushing so hard in another?

It reminded me that creativity often resists force. When we pressure ourselves to produce, we sometimes narrow the space in which ideas can emerge. It is as though our conscious mind becomes a strict gatekeeper, allowing nothing through because it’s so focused on finding “the right thing.” But when we step away, the subconscious is free to work without supervision, drawing connections and sparking ideas from unexpected places.

In my case, I stopped worrying about the blank page and allowed myself to enjoy a book. That small act of turning my attention elsewhere freed my mind to wander. The new ideas had nothing to do with the content I was reading, yet somehow the reading opened the gate. It was not the subject itself, but the change in mental state that mattered.

There is a quiet lesson in this: inspiration is not always found by staring harder at the problem. Sometimes it comes from shifting your focus entirely, giving your mind room to stretch. A walk, a conversation, a piece of music, or a chapter in a book can awaken creativity more effectively than hours of concentrated effort.

I still face moments when my thoughts go blank. But now, instead of panicking, I have a strategy. I know that stepping away is not giving up, it’s inviting ideas to come in their own time. I let go of the need to force words and turn to something that engages me in a different way. More often than not, the ideas return, often richer and more varied than before.

That day with Alan Watts reminded me that creativity is less like a faucet you turn on and off, and more like a tide that comes and goes. You cannot command it to rise on schedule, but you can prepare yourself to be ready when it does. Sometimes the best way to fill a blank page is to stop staring at it.