Day 267 – Not being able to write
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Buried Alive: Why Writing Isn’t Just a Passion—It’s Oxygen
“For me, not being allowed to write is tantamount to being buried alive.” — Mikhail Bulgakov
Imagine the heavy, suffocating weight of earth pressing down on your chest. Imagine the absolute silence, the inability to move, the slow, agonizing realisation that your voice has been completely muffled from the world.
To most people, writing is a hobby, a professional skill, or perhaps a therapeutic outlet. But to the true writer, Mikhail Bulgakov’s haunting words are not hyperbole. They are a statement of biological and spiritual reality. For certain souls, the prohibition of the written word is not a restriction; it is an execution.
Why is it that the compulsion to write runs so deep? And what happens when a writer is forced into silence? Let’s explore the profound weight of Bulgakov’s words and what they reveal about the fierce, untameable nature of the creative spirit.
The Prison of the Unwritten: Who Was Mikhail Bulgakov?
To truly understand this sentiment, we have to look at the man who uttered it. Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian novelist and playwright best known for his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. Living and writing under the oppressive regime of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, Bulgakov experienced censorship and blacklisting firsthand.
His books were banned, his plays were pulled from stages, and his livelihood was systematically dismantled by the state. He was effectively silenced—not because he had nothing to say, but because what he had to say terrified those in power.
When a government or circumstance forbids an artist from creating, it attempts to sever their connection to humanity. For Bulgakov, living in Soviet Russia without the right to write meant his thoughts had nowhere to go. They stagnated, poisoned him from the inside, and turned his daily life into a tomb. When he wrote that famous plea to Joseph Stalin—asking either to be permitted to work or to be exiled abroad because “a Russian writer cannot live without his homeland”—he was fighting for his life.
Writing as an Existential Necessity
Why does the denial of writing feel like entombment?
- The Mind as a Pressure Cooker: Writers don’t just decide to write; they are driven by a ceaseless internal engine. Characters speak in their heads; plots unfold while washing dishes; observations of the world demand to be translated into metaphor. When this creative pressure has no outlet, it builds up. Without the release valve of the blank page, the mind becomes a claustrophobic chamber.
- The Urge to Exist For many writers, writing is proof of existence. René Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” The writer adds, “I write, therefore I am understood.” To write is to take the chaotic, fleeting experience of being human and anchor it into something permanent. If you cannot write, your experiences vanish into the ether, leaving you feeling invisible—as if you have already faded away.
- Connection Across the Void Art is a bridge. When writers put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), they are reaching out across the dark abyss of isolation to say, “Are you here too? Did you feel this?” To ban a writer from writing is to cut the ropes of that bridge, leaving them stranded on an island of their own unspoken thoughts.
The Modern “Buried Alive”
You don’t have to live under a totalitarian regime to know what it feels like to be buried alive creatively.
In our modern lives, we often bury ourselves. We take on demanding corporate jobs that drain our cognitive battery. We prioritize productivity over expression. We tell ourselves, “I’ll write that novel, start that blog, or finish that poem when things settle down.”
Days turn into months. Months turn into years.
Suddenly, you wake up and realize you haven’t created anything authentic in ages. You feel restless, irritable, and strangely hollow—even if your life looks successful on paper. That is the feeling of suffocation. That is the slow creep of being buried alive by the mundane demands of daily survival.
Bulgakov’s words serve as a stark wake-up call: Neglecting your creative calling is a form of self-burial.
How to Unearth Yourself
If you are reading this and feeling the dirt piling up over your own creative ambitions, how do you dig your way out? How do you claw your way back to the surface?
- Steal the Moments: You don’t need a cabin in the woods or a year-long sabbatical to write. Bulgakov wrote even when his works were banned, hiding manuscripts in drawers (famously leading to the phrase “manuscripts don’t burn”). Write in the margins of your day—fifteen minutes on your lunch break, thirty minutes before the world wakes up.
- Release the Need for Perfection: Often, the fear of writing badly keeps us from writing at all. But a messy, breathing draft is infinitely better than the sterile perfection of a blank page locked inside your head.
- Treat It Like Oxygen: Stop viewing writing as a reward you give yourself if you finish your chores. Treat it like water and air. Carve out non-negotiable space for it in your routine.
Final Thoughts: Let the Voice Out
Mikhail Bulgakov reminds us that the human spirit cannot be indefinitely suppressed without consequence. Words are meant to be let out into the light, not left to rot in the dark catacombs of the mind.
If you have a story burning a hole in your chest, an essay waiting to be born, or a poem struggling to break free, do not keep it buried. Pick up the pen. Hit the keys. Breathe.
Because on the other side of that blank page isn’t just a finished piece of work—it’s your freedom.
What does writing mean to you? Have you ever felt the suffocating weight of creative silence? Let’s talk about it in the comments below.
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