The first advice I received this year was: “You don’t matter.”
The line, delivered casually by professor Eduard Fanthome, initially shocked me. As he unpacked it, however, it started to make more sense. If I am not the center of the universe, and there is no invisible ledger tallying worth and consequence, then the imagined structure I had been orienting myself around starts to dissolve.
That was the first lesson I heard in an interview for “Office Hours for the Soul,” and arguably the advice that fundamentally changed my relationship to writing. Before I began this column, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t know how I was going to make that happen. Fanthome reminded me that I can start wherever I want, because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter.
But if no one was really keeping score, then why was I writing like they were? I had been struggling with being overly critical of my own writing, but Fanthome’s advice convinced me to let go of the strict rules I had imposed on myself, and to write like no one was watching.
He’s right. Who cares what other people are going to say? No one is coming to smash my computer and stop me from writing. Logically, I knew that, but it took time to internalize. Knowing something intellectually and actually living like it are two very different things.
At first, however, I still wrote like someone was reading over my shoulder. Every sentence felt like it had to be approved by an invisible audience of professors, peers or future versions of myself who might cringe. Even when I tried to be honest, I could feel myself sanding things down before they ever reached the page. I was still writing like everyone cared and would be judging my every word.
In my second interview, professor Brent Armendinger told me to just “show up” and “work those muscles” — to play with language, to stretch what it’s capable of. After that interview, I had a million ideas of what to write my column about, but when I came back to the page, I felt the eyes of hundreds of campus readers looking over my shoulder. And once more, I produced a column that was an honest summary of my interview, but lacked the authenticity I wanted it to have. It was careful, and it made sense. But it didn’t feel like me.
That was the pattern I kept running into: clarity in conversation, hesitation in writing. I could hear ideas clearly when I was talking to people, but the moment I sat down alone, I started second-guessing what was “allowed” on the page. Allowed by who, I’m still not sure. But the feeling was enough to hold me back.
When I interviewed professor Lisa Auerbach, I gained even more clarity on my creative process. Auerbach, who had traded her iPhone for a pager, urged me to resist technology while writing. When I returned to the page that week, I had her words in my mind: “Get rid of your smartphone,” she said. “You’re not going to die.”
And so, for the first time — literally ever — I put my phone away while writing, took out a real paper notebook and finally produced something I liked: a poem that got published in a local literary journal. It was the most honest thing I had written in a long time. It felt real. It felt alive. For the first time, I wrote like no one was watching.
The shift from fragmented thinking interrupted by tiny screens to sustained focus on being present changed the way language arrived for me. It stopped feeling like something I had to force and started feeling like something I could actually listen to. When I listened to myself instead of performing, my writing got better.
After that, I devoted myself to writing my columns for fun. I began asking different questions. Not “What will this sound like to someone else?” but “What do I actually think here?” How can I make these interviews about things that apply to my life — and hopefully the lives of others — instead of just profiles that summarize someone else in a neat and safe way? How can I write my columns like no one cares, and trust that that’s exactly what will make someone else care?
Since then, my writing has flourished. Not because more people care, but because I write without stopping to overthink how my words will be received. That’s why it’s time to say goodbye to “Office Hours for the Soul” — because I don’t need it anymore in the same way.
When I started this column, I think I was looking for someone to tell me that I was good enough to be a writer, so that I wouldn’t have to sit with the discomfort of authentic creation and the possibility of judgment. The professors I’ve interviewed this year have given me exactly what I needed to eradicate those feelings: encouragement, confidence and most importantly, a way of writing that forces me to get out of my own way and write like no one is watching.
Siena Giacoma PZ ’27 survives on endless cycles of caffeine, half-written drafts and lofty promises to finish that book tomorrow. Her cat, Olive, remains skeptical, offering judgmental stares in place of encouragement.