I had a page pulled out of the newspaper with a column that I liked. After positioning it on the wall and making sure it was square with the top of my desk, I started pushing a thumbtack through the top right corner. It went through the pages with ease, but when the pin met the wall its progress halted. Maybe it’s a stud, I thought to myself. So I pressed harder, all the blood rushing from my thumbnail turning white, the plastic head of the tack digging in to the skin of my thumbprint, the joint of my thumb bending back to the point of hyperextension.

And it still wouldn’t go in. But if I stop now and take my thumb off the tack, I thought to myself, then the pages will fall off the wall and I’ll have to go through positioning them again. I couldn’t give up. I was resolved. I had to press on. Even if my thumb breaks it will have been for a noble cause, I told myself. So I took a step back, reset my feet, and drove all my strength up from my legs, through my torso and arm, into my little lionhearted thumb.

In that moment, my life had meaning. There was a river bed for all my blood to flow, a singular purpose for my mind to concentrate—a point to all my power.

It didn’t matter who would win. I had brought my sharpened thumbtack to the battlefield and the wall had met me there with its impenetrable shield and we had done battle, fighting for our rights—I, to decorate and domesticate; the wall, to remain native and naked.

I started to sweat. I could feel my thumb joint bending back, about to break. My heel throbbed at the point where it was driven into the carpet, drawing up the force that coursed through my braced body. I took a deep breath, bellowed a battle cry, and lunged forward.

Slumped with my back against the wall, sliding down to sit. I looked at my thumbprint and there was a circular, red-rimmed indentation.

Just as I was about to give up, it went in all at once.