Between Pen and Paper: Flaneuring Through a Writer’s Mind – The Pursuit of Happiness with Lemons, Ink, and Fireworks

By Andi Kopek

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Since I’ve been living in the United States, July has taken on a particular kind of symbolism. It's loud, bright, and laced with bold declarations. Fireworks blossom in the sky like punctuation marks over phrases such as “liberty” and “freedom.”

On July 4th, 1776, the Second Continental Congress ratified the final text of the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. It wasn’t the start of the war (that had begun a year earlier), nor was it the end (which would come in 1783). But it was, the ideological birth certificate of a new nation. One that had cut the umbilical cord to the British Empire and declared its intention to govern itself.

A bold move. A fresh myth. A country born, literally, from the sentence. And what a sentence it was:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... endowed with certain unalienable Rights… among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It’s hard not to feel something when you hear those words—especially if, like me, you grew up in a country where such phrases would have been edited out of existence by the morning censors.

Fireworks and Ghosts

Growing up in so-called communist Poland, “independence” wasn’t a holiday. It was a hope, whispered between trusted friends, unless you preferred the seclusion of solitary confinement or an endless winter in Siberia. “Freedom” wasn’t declared. It was encoded. We didn’t have parades of liberty—we had a quiet choreography of caution. You learned early to read between the lines, because that’s where the real story lived.

So every year, when July rolls around in my new home, and the sky explodes with stars and stripes, I can’t help but feel... something tangled. Gratitude, yes. Awe, sometimes. But also, a sense of skepticism. A question humming under the national anthem:

Are we truly free? Are we truly independent?

Especially as writers—as creators of meaning, challengers of narratives, recorders of the soul’s strange movements—what do these words actually mean?

Freedom vs. Independence vs. The Editor in Your Head

Let’s make a distinction.

• Freedom is a state of possibility.

• Independence is a stance—an insistence that you don’t owe your truth to anyone else’s permission.

• And auto-censorship? That’s when you stop yourself before anyone else does.

I see more and more of this creeping into American discourse. It’s subtle, often self-imposed. It wears the costume of politeness, professionalism, marketability. Often with an underpinning of fear.

Some examples:

• A writer won’t publish a story that’s too dark, too weird, or too political—because they “don’t want to get canceled.”

• A teacher won’t assign a novel that shaped them—because it might be challenged at the school board.

• A memoirist waters down the truth to make it more palatable, more “brand-friendly.”

These aren’t laws. They’re suggestions. A mandatory appendix. Ingrained mechanisms of survival in a culture of performance scores and surveillance. You stop yourself—not because you were censored, but because you feared the potential consequences.

Sound familiar?

Auto-censorship—the ugly twin of state censorship—is often harder to fight, because the gatekeeper lives inside you.

Lemons and Invisible Ink

But here’s the paradox. Here’s the secret silver lining.

In Poland, under an oppressive regime, some of the most brilliant, impactful writing of the 20th century was created. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t explicit. It was disguised. Dressed in metaphor.

Hidden behind allegory. Written, in essence, with invisible ink.

(And in case you forgot: invisible ink can be made from lemon juice.)

Poets, playwrights, novelists—they all became alchemists of subtlety. They learned how to camouflage universal truths in narratives that passed the censors. But readers knew. They always knew. Because real truth, even disguised, leaves fingerprints on the soul.

So yes, the world today is full of pressure—external and internal—to conform, to smooth the edges, to silence complexity. But as a writer, you are not helpless in the face of that. In fact, you may be even more powerful. Because restrictions can sharpen clarity, and fear, when transmuted, can become a lens.

Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness

Let me end where the Declaration began—with that shimmering phrase: “the pursuit of happiness.”

What does that mean for a writer? Not much.

I believe that writing isn’t a pursuit of happiness. It’s the embrace of discomfort, the dance with uncertainty, the slow unearthing of truths most people are too polite to mention. And if you do it right—if you do it with courage and cunning—you don’t just entertain. You preserve. You inspire. You leave something behind.

So this July, while the sky narrates independence in bursts of color, I raise a pen—not in pursuit of happiness, but in allegiance to something deeper:

The fulfillment in camouflaging permanent, universal truths for the generations to come.

A legacy not shouted, but planted. A voice not loud, but built to last.

So go collect your lemons. Write between the lines.

Never compromise.

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Andi Kopek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nashville, TN. With a background in medicine, molecular neuroscience, and behavioral change, he has recently devoted himself entirely to the creative arts. His debut poetry collection, Shmehara, has garnered accolades in both literary and independent film circles for its innovative storytelling.

When you’re in Nashville, you can join Andi at his monthly poetry workshop, participate in the Libri Prohibiti book club (both held monthly at the Spine bookstore, Smyrna, TN), or catch one of his live performances. When not engaging with the community, he's hard at work on his next creative project or preparing for his monthly art-focused podcast, The Samovar(t) Lounge: Steeping Conversations with Creative Minds, where in a relaxed space, invited artists share tea and the never-told intricacies of their creative journeys.

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