I didn’t find the file I was looking for, which holds the drafts of my flying spoon poems. These have swerved in and out of my life for so many years now that I have quite a fat file. The file now stands for the reality. I thought, If I don’t find this spoon file I won’t be able to write the poem that I was put on this earth to write and my life will have been in vain.

I sprawled in bed grieving for the loss of this file, although I knew it wasn’t lost but somewhere in my office. And then I saw that the only chance I had of writing a half-decent spoon poem was in not finding the file. As soon as I had the file in hand it would smother any new upswellings I might have. I felt released from a heavy burden and I lay in bed blinking at my good fortune.

— Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist