Etwas

I am trained in writing from the Danish School of Media and Journalism. I am trained in producing news, reports, and writing about European affairs in English.
First, research, write a text, publish it, and start the next one.

I knew the technicalities, but I was slow. As a PR employee, I had the advantage of having time on my side, but I spent too much time working.

Writing was product-oriented and that was the goal for a long time. Write = Produce. And I enjoyed those productions. I loved describing educational courses, for example, a report on the “Tour de Middle Earth” course. Or the graphic work of creating brochures and posters in Photoshop. That’s my professional background in writing. Writing was a set task, which simultaneously had the right degree of fun and challenge.

But the writing that occupies me the most and gives me the most at the moment is the private diary and the “Something About” posts, of which this is a part. It’s a different kind of writing. With a different purpose.

The Private Diary

Is a small black Moleskine book, only for my eyes and no one else’s.
I say that I write to share, but that’s a truth with modifications.
In it, I put into words the circumstances that make me physically need to sit down and write. It’s a treatment of loose thoughts in my head. Or a concretization. The subjects are often the same as the thoughts I allow myself to share here on social media:

Namely about my human experience. About love, reflections, frustrations, necessary developments in life, and other thoughts I need to process. Writing is a processing process, where I tackle thoughts, feelings, and developments in my life.

I know that I am about to make a major life-changing event when I write it down in my personal diary, for then it’s in writing, then it’s real and already set in motion. The rest is just a formality that needs to be carried out, although it usually involves a hell of a lot of pain.

When I tried modeling in Cape Town in 2019, where I lost all my money and didn’t land a modeling job, I had time to reflect on where I was and where I wanted to go. I lacked someone to talk to about my thoughts and feelings, so I brought out the book. Frequently. Towards the end of the three months, I set a course for the next two years, which I followed to the letter.

Everything I wrote down there came true. I started at UCN. I moved to Hobro.
I broke up with my ex, even though I wrote in the book that I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

But I know myself well enough to know that it’s written between the lines, namely the fear that it would happen.

Words are potent, especially when I choose to give them the meaning that the words in my diary have.

Sometimes it’s actually quite good to have such a break, even if it was an expensive lesson!

Something About “Something About”

“Something About,” which you’re reading here, is written to be shared. What’s the point of only writing for oneself? I can’t write about everything in the diary and it’s a great feeling to say “WHATEVER” and send a text out into the ether.

It’s open thoughts.

Stories about circumstances that could be about you or have to do with you, but aren’t. The texts are not about a specific event, but there is a catalyst or several catalysts that form the thought mass for each writing.

I love writing because it makes me reflect on past behavior and put words to thoughts, feelings, and personal intuition. Personal things that I experience in daily life but can’t really describe in words in everyday life. Here the writing process is a coffee filter, where all impressions lie and simmer for a good while before they are ready to come out into the world.

The writings, physical and digital, remind me that I will never be a finished product.
That there is no finish line or final result for how I become “THE ULTIMATE ESBEN!!!”

Writing is a process. The search for the appropriate words to describe a state and seek some meaning in the madness. It helps to think the thought aloud and get it in writing.

The Joy of Rereading

The best thing about writing, both the diary and “Something About,” is that I can reread both. See where I was, who I was, and how I was. But not everything comes on the pages. Interestingly, I don’t document the really happy times.

Therefore, I try to create the habit of capturing the happy moments as well.
For example, there isn’t a single entry in the diary from 2017-2018. I believe I was incredibly happy during that period. I didn’t need to write for those two years. And that’s probably good! But it would be nice to see who that unknown, happy person was during that time.

Since then, I’ve tried to write when I was happy. But a habit is only a habit if you repeat it again and again. I ended my first diary by writing about happiness, focusing on the highlights I had that year. The good things. I have included it a few times since. It’s about capturing them and holding on to them, otherwise, they disappear too easily into the fog of the past.

In 10 years, I can look back on the current process and the thoughts I go through and think it was okay. That it was part of the journey, and that I ended up in another place, not necessarily a better place, but a place where I could have peace with myself, instead of this middle ground I find myself in at this time.

I look forward to that time. I really do. It filled me with a warm feeling when I sat down to read my first diary from start to finish. All those experiences, the change, I saw my younger self go through, and the sorrows he had to endure to become me.

I love writing. It reminds me that I once was another person, and that I once made choices that made sense to me at that time.

I love writing because it allows me to revisit myself and for a moment understand a little about the person I was.

I love writing because you might be reading this and thinking about when you last wrote something for yourself.

If you’re thinking that, then write. What’s the worst that can happen?