Writing about Writing, Part I

For the last few weeks, every evening, I had been forcing myself after getting back into the house to write an essay – any short and succinct essay. Last year, barring a day in December which brought a surge of light for me, was so dark on the whole that I didn’t write in case I tempted fate further. I scribbled and made copious work-related notes elsewhere. And for some weeks I had had the gall to assume that I could just sit and whip out any piece dealing with matters about life which matter (part of my current work and workshops relate to the same after all). And then I don’t know when but I felt that I’d be wasting time if I wrote an essay. I wanted to write and felt guilty at the same time and my snapping-self said sharply, ‘And what possible good will your writing do?! Just work on your work and keep knocking on doors.’ In the evening there were no doors to knock on. I can’t play any musical instrument and while I do listen to music and read, even after doing some of the latter and walking and thinking and reflecting rather deeply in bouts and being unable to solve more than a few puzzles, I’d feel restless. I’ll stay quiet about my few visits to one local pool. Some very late eves I worked or gathered or hunted down material for work, otherwise I’d sit and scribble in my diary and talk quietly with Fimh – away from snapping-self’s words, which I couldn’t completely dismiss.

But Fimh would remind me that since I had to keep walking on with what I carried in between my two ears essentially and in me – it was useful to actually keep typing out an essay every now and then. It would keep my mind sharp, alert and watchful, for one thing. It would help to organize my mind and order my boxes of thoughts. I grumpfhed with what fimh pointed out and felt he was trying to make me feel better and said, ‘I’ll write later. I know what I need to know, don’t I? And others have written about these matters very clearly, haven’t they? I remember what I need to. I just need to put it into a different format. That’s my job…well, a good part of it. It’s about the mind, isn’t it? Mind and…behaviour.’ Fimh innocently nudged me to think about the mind since it fascinated me so much – something like ‘the mind matters and why’. I had ideas then and all the bits and pieces read and remembered and experienced fell rapidly into place and I started typing with gusto. But then the thoughts got jumbled and questions of old arose. Suddenly. For there were two thoughts I’d started out with – and suddenly the soul and the spirit had clambered into the picture. Fimh patiently said, ‘well, write about the soul and spirit then…they’re not disconnected.’ And as I started upon that and typed a few pages, I flung my hands up in the air, ‘how is this going to help any? I keep digressing. And quite frankly, the part about the Spirit and Soul sounds barmy...it comes across as fiction! And I haven’t even talked about why the mind matters. This isn’t working.’

My pesky-self however was malicious and had started telling me that I didn’t write because I had no thoughts anymore. That I had become stu-pid. My pesky-self chortled, ‘you’re becoming a walking-talking-doing vegetable!’ To which I retorted with, ‘I am NOT a vegetable!’ and upon pesky-self’s widening grin which threatened to split pesky-self’s face, I said, ‘Vegetable – gah-bah.’ And my pesky-self told me through a song that I was a sour beet and something about how I was a grum, irritating and utterly humourless bore. Sadly enough I couldn’t really argue with that for some very sharp and sad images of my being an irritating, very solemn, grum beet and a humourless bore who neither laughed upon an amusing line in the middle of a solemn conversation nor could get another to laugh with a repartee…rose to my mind. Fimh stepped in then. I won’t go through the whole exchange between Fimh and me however. But there are some realizations that emerged from the pot and so I’ll put a few on record.

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Writing – the ability to write – is something that I’ve never quite valued in myself. I’ve enjoyed writing – here and there and sometimes in my diary. But to enjoy something and to value something are not exactly the same, I think. Valuing implies and involves a more conscious process of thought. It’s only when across these last few weeks that I could not write anything that I started getting alarmed. I won’t go into the mixed reasons for my rising alarm. I have loved reading some of what I do and I’ve loved thinking and going ‘aha’ with bizarre connections and upon being able to see effortless connections made by others. I have felt the deep and evocative feelings (which sometimes go beyond language) which are conjured up by human beings in grand or great or insightful or interesting or stirring or vivid writing. I don’t mean these words in any casual sense. I know the kind of writing I am talking about. I have liked scribbling while on my own – of course. But I’ve never persisted in writing about matters unless it came to me very easily and without any hitches or when I’ve simply rambled along (and there is nothing endearing about rambling when it’s like an uncontrollable tic). But one of the things I realized upon long bits of reflection without losing my temper is that writing is an art. Of course I’ve known that. Yes. After all I can rattle off from memory substantial parts from a piece on ‘why we read and write poetry’ and I carry the rest in my head for one clear reason, at least, that before I read that piece I had never really known why I read (and even felt guilty sometimes for reading and re-reading some stuff while neglecting other stuff and for also not reading enough!).

I can say at this point in my life that I most likely had an affinity and even an aptitude for writing and language (I have never had an aptitude for Maths). I have had a strong relationship with writing but I never quite saw it as some sort of an ‘ability’ that I possess. I wrote because I could. I’ve noted in my mind and diary some of the things I cannot do and that is a mighty long list indeed. Yet I never quite comprehended that writing is a skill that I do have – to an extent – which I also love. I loved extended academic writing only during one phase of my life (and the topic had all to do with it) and enjoyed writing a few term papers when I got immersed in them for brief bits and I’ve not written more than a handful of stories. But I have loved writing about or writing in response to ideas and about parts of life which matter (and do not matter), events and incidents and ways and manners of humans (not excluding myself) other beings, great and small, and so on – for I have loved reading about the same. Such ideas and parts (which matter) resonate within me and get me thinking and reflecting and banish the dark and dreary mushrooms and sometimes give me room to smile and sometimes laugh and connect the variety of various experiences (with what I read) and to ‘hold on’ while walking along. In a few of the most important junctures of my life, writings by others which I have read and re-read has kept my head above water and has even got me to shift my course of flight, among other things. It isn’t reading alone that has done this for me – but it is certainly one central part. Reading and writing have more often than I can count kept my mental motors whirring.

In spite of the above, for all this time I never really equated my own ability to write as some sort of a creative activity as I would have say if I could paint or sing or sculpt or play the piano with a similar level of skill. On some very late evenings I had felt ridiculous because I could do none of those things and felt I could have come across as a being a better and more developed human being if I could have. Thinking, I have valued and enjoyed, loved, even felt guilty and angry and sad and confused about and even banished it sometimes. Writing as an activity that I can do – did not make me feel the same way unless it involved writing letters during a couple of light-and-shade filled periods of my life. And it’s considerably bizarre to have felt this way when among all the creative activities I’ve valued – magnificent, superlative and very high quality writing by others, to me, expresses an ultimate level and form of creativity. There are reasons for this which I know of and some of them I sense but I shall not get into them here. Not for once am I saying that I do not value the other creative activities; I value them extremely highly as well.

The whole bit of the sudden and somewhat slowly emerging realization made me wonder why I had such a mindless non-valuing of any writing skill that I possess. I knew one reason or a couple immediately but they do not need to be discussed here, personal as they are and most likely unique to me because I’m abnormal. But a few of the other general ones that came to my mind can be put down here.

Writing about Writing, Part II appears here.