Late Night Blues by Lin Jiarui

Late Night Blues by Lin Jiarui

Writing is one of those things that, however often you return to it, something new can still emerge. And it will, with graceful languor – time after time again.

We begin with the cheekily paradoxical: writing as a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. As the universe descends towards chaos, words – encased in ink, or pixelated on a screen – always seem to endow the world with a delicate, sprawling structure, extending to the bounds of awareness. Which leaves a troubling possibility: that perhaps we ended off with more turmoil than we started with. Call it turmoil, call it complexity. Either way, one cannot exist without the other.

Then there’s writing as catharsis, an emotional purgation of sorts. (Note to dear reader: watch as negative emotions abound in hyperbole and unbridled locution.) At times we are left spent and temporarily wasted; at others we feel relieved, a kind of peace almost bleeding into happiness. Or writing as an externalisation of internal disorder; where for a moment, the tempest abates to a whisper.