going toward

photo via unsplash

I think that to some extent, all writing is about being known. The writer writes to gain a more thorough grasp of her own thoughts, and thus, of herself. The nature of writing in my experience of it is in drilling down deep enough that you can go no further. There may still be murkiness or doubt in the soil where you land — all things cannot be fully known — but it is the writer’s job to push to that furthest expanse, where it is only doubt that obscures, not stones left unturned.

This is identity.

Eventually, after the thoughts are known to the mind of the writer, there comes a second expression of this desire to be known — for the thoughts to be presented in such a way that others can know them, too. To share.

In this way, writing is ultimately an opportunity to give away ideas, to shape the thoughts of others. If art is to provoke thought, and to challenge ideas, writing is the same only perhaps at times it does these things with more specificity.

This is community.

I find that I actually do want to shape people’s thoughts, which I guess is why I feel the compulsion to write. I am a little bit surprised by this in myself, to be honest. I don’t think of myself as persuasive, nor do I like the idea of imposing anything on anyone. but I also sense that this motivation comes not solely from me, but from god dwelling in me — and the united goal between us, it seems, is not to command thinking so much as to be known…and, to be loved.

Most of what I feel a desire to make known is not thoughts I have hatched all by myself — they're more like a collaborative project between him and me. He teaches me to understand, and shows me the way to look at things differently and with radical, transformational hope. It’s a perspective, but a mysterious one and this is what I feel energized to create more points of access to.

This is narrative.

It is by no means a straightforward task.

I love this quote by Stuart Dybek: “I used to think that writing was about saying something, now I’ve learned it is about making something.”

I’m not here to say something, it’s true, I couldn't have always put a finger on it, but that really isn’t quite right. But making something…that is as much a part of me as there ever could be. Making things isn’t a choice, it’s only a measurement in direction, toward or away.

I have been away for some time — and now, it’s time to go toward — however strangely, pathetically, impractically.

for me, it is better to go toward making something in any stripe than it is to go away from it in a shadow of fear. fear brings out the worst in us, and for me right now that looks like being asleep : which is no way to be alive.

It is what we do and do not do that makes us

Negative space and positive, too.