Coloring the Unwritten Page of Your Life
Claim the page of your life with honest strokes, and color it without apology. — Jorge Luis Borges
Life as a Page Waiting for Ink
Borges’ image of a “page” invites us to see life not as a fixed script but as something still being written. Rather than a completed book, our days resemble blank or half-filled pages, open to revision and fresh lines. This metaphor shifts responsibility back to us: if the page is empty or pale, it is not fate’s fault alone. Instead, it suggests that every decision—what we accept, resist, or dream—becomes a sentence on that page, turning abstract potential into visible text. Thus, the quote gently insists that we are not merely readers of our lives, but also their primary authors.
The Power of Honest Strokes
When Borges calls for “honest strokes,” he emphasizes authenticity over perfection. An honest line may be shaky, uneven, even embarrassing, yet it is truer than a polished lie. In much the same way, diarists from Samuel Pepys to Anne Frank reveal that raw, imperfect truth creates the most enduring narratives. By drawing our lives with honest strokes, we resist the temptation to mimic others’ scripts, choosing instead to admit our doubts, scars, and contradictions. This candor does more than define identity; it frees us from the exhausting task of maintaining a carefully edited façade.
Coloring Without Apology
The second half of the quote—“color it without apology”—urges us not only to be truthful, but also unabashedly vivid. Color here stands for passion, eccentricity, and the specific shades of desire that make one life distinguishable from another. Just as painters like Frida Kahlo used intense colors to render inner pain and joy inseparable, we, too, are invited to live in unmuted tones. To color without apology means declining to dim ourselves for others’ comfort, choosing instead to inhabit our choices fully, even when they clash with conventional palettes of success or respectability.
Resisting the Editor in Your Head
Yet between honest strokes and unapologetic color stands a formidable barrier: the internal editor. This is the voice that whispers, “Erase that,” or “Don’t use that color; people will judge.” Cognitive psychologists describe similar patterns as internalized criticism, shaped by family, culture, and past failures. Over time, this editor can paralyze action, leaving the page ghostly and underwritten. Borges’ imperative to “claim” the page suggests a quiet rebellion against that voice. Rather than letting fear redline every bold idea, we learn to revise gently—correcting harm when needed, but refusing to delete the self that longs to appear on the page.
Claiming Authorship Amid External Pressures
Of course, our pages do not exist in isolation; they lie within a vast library of expectations. Societies prescribe acceptable plots—career ladders, family timelines, sanctioned dreams—and deviation can invite criticism or exclusion. Historical figures who redrafted their assigned pages, from Simone de Beauvoir to James Baldwin, show how costly and yet transformative such choices can be. Borges’ wording, “claim the page,” subtly recognizes this struggle. To claim is to assert ownership in the face of competing claims: tradition, prejudice, or the inertia of habit. Doing so does not mean ignoring others’ stories, but rather refusing to let them overwrite your own.
Living as an Ongoing Draft
Finally, seeing your life as a page to be claimed and colored reframes mistakes as edits rather than final verdicts. Authors routinely revise manuscripts, not because the first version was worthless, but because meaning emerges through reworking. By adopting this mindset, we allow ourselves the grace to pivot—a career change, a new belief, a healed relationship—without shame for previous chapters. Borges’ counsel becomes, then, a practice of continuous authorship: insisting on truth in each stroke, welcoming intensity in every color, and accepting that our most honest pages may also be the most unfinished, alive with the possibility of one more courageous line.