Simple instructions are what I give you. Do it my way, or do it the wrong way. Here is how you do it the right way.

Open your notebook cover. Next, hold the first page with your right thumb and index finger at the upper right corner. Slowly but confidently, draw your hand down and across. This will expose the second page. Do not hurry, do not dawdle. The tear should sound consistent. It should ring with magnanimity. If you hear discordant hubris, you are doing it the wrong way. Remember, the goal is not to remove the page from the notebook, but to bring the page into being.

When you have pulled the page down to the point in which only a single thread holds it to the spine, stop. Look at what you have accomplished. You are about to lighten your notebook. The notebook looks relieved. The notebook looks happy to lose that part of itself. In doing so, it achieves a new inner identity while, simultaneously, it has served well its purpose.

Understand the importance of this event. For the page and for the notebook. Monumental. Once you realize this, you will be ready to pull the page free of the notebook.

Ready? Separate. Remove. Liberate the page.

Well done.

Next, with your left hand, push aside the notebook. Get it out of the way. Wherever you can find room.

Now look at the newly torn page. Let it dangle from your hand. Observe its oneness, its fullness, its wholeness. Before, it was a minor part of something else. Now it hangs before you on its own, ready, willing, and eager to receive the message.

Put the page down. Run your fingers over its surface. It loves to feel your touch. Yet as much as it yearns for you, it yearns even more for the touch of charcoal. It anticipates the charcoal to begin moving across its ivory blankness because charcoal fulfills the page’s destiny.

The notebook, flatter and lighter now, is full of wonder. Full of unbounded joy. It celebrates the page’s miraculous journey. It celebrates the page’s removal.

Now, once again, take the notebook’s second page in your hand, between thumb and index finger. Slowly pull down.

Bio: Richard Holinger