I think writing is not an act that can be performed satisfactorily without some motivation. For me, then, the lack of motivation is a greater problem than the lack of skill. There may not be any basic skill of a writer as testified by the fact that there are all kinds of writers who have impressed and affected me, from Coetzee’s austere prose to the flowery narratives of Marquez. Even the diary of a young girl like Anne Frank left an imprint, because it had a sense of genuineness about its description of human tragedy in face of evil embodied in another human. So, I should need some inspiration to stay true to the writing. Right now I am writing because I don’t feel like doing anything else to fill the void within. This has made me sit and do what I am doing right now. So, what I usually write here or elsewhere has no particular, narrow theme, and sometimes even appears schizophrenic to me. What does tie it all together is a general motivation to stay interested in simple things in life while trying to address some basic issues is life, mostly to deal with an existential emptiness, which I want to face squarely, instead of looking instead for escapes in pseudo-religion, shallow acquaintanceship, mediocre art, inconsistent ideologies, and of course, consumerism. When this existential angst is not suppressed it turns into breeding grounds for this feeling to address it. I want to face it, and through it, accept and deal with my freedom as a human, by bringing myself to express myself to myself in a way that makes me stronger and vulnerable at the same time.
Writing without persisting inspiration is like trying to fly without proper wings; one can stay in the air for a while, but then bound to come down and feel miserable. Still, once we get into the process, it’s amazing how one starts feeling when one lets oneself truly feel and express, without trying to suppress the emotions that surge within, even if it is for a short spell of time. Perhaps these emotional upheavals oblige us to understand and to tame them, and written words could assist us in this seemingly arduous task. But, why write? Why not just think? The written word has a certain peculiar permanence about it, which in some ways is there with the spoken word, because it stays in the mind of others, but this permanence is not quite there with the thought word. Though our thoughts build on each other, there is a great deal of attrition in the process, some due to the natural limitations of memory, and others, and these are the crucial ones, due to the brutal excerption by the assumptions that may have taken strong roots in our mind. Some thoughts, due to their old, deep roots, take superiority over others, which is almost arbitrary, unless this superiority is due to a reasoned choice, but even then they need to be revisited. In any case, this kind of attrition and entropy separate the thought word from the written or the spoken word. Writing also helps one realize the flawed logic that may be implicit in some thought. These advantages are crucial when one is basically aiming to understand the true nature of things.
So, is writing an escape, or an easier alternative to the more difficult enterprise of bringing the same rigor to thought, by dealing with games that the mind plays, by actually trying to face reality as it is, in its rawness, without the pollution of mind or language? And what about language? Doesn’t that constrain things further? Certain things cannot be written within the constraints of language, while the boundaries of thoughts are wider. Even though they are also restricted by language, I think the language of thoughts has a wider scope than that of the written word. The written word begets a certain structure, which is not necessary for the thought, which requires a different kind of structure. So, which way is better? Or are there other ways? I am not sure, and I don’t think I can be sure of such things in the foreseeable future. But, I can keep looking for answers. In the meanwhile, I just make do, using a solution that I think is the best and the most useful, knowing very well that there is a possibility that this so-called solution may be destroying something important in my life. That's why life appears to be a long series of efforts to find heuristic solutions to ill-structured problems. I see writing of this type as one such heuristic solution.
Since the written word has a sense of permanence about it, writing is a bold act, and therefore the act of writing is also an expression of faith in the possibility of the risk, if any, being worthwhile, because of a hope of succeeding in making oneself understand what is behind the words, the hope of discovering oneself in the process of turning the feelings (and the analysis that gets inextricably linked to them in a mind condemned to be a slave of reason) into bare words. This sense of permanence is not just related to other people reading these words. Even if no one else were to ever see the words written, the sense of permanence plays itself out during the act of writing. One is conscious of the words being written, continuously considering and reconsidering. I wonder if pure spontaneity is possible, except of course in poetry, especially the Haiku-type poetry.
In writing, I do try to stay true to myself because most of all I want to make sense of things, ease my suffering, embrace my existence, and survive as an individual.
Writing without persisting inspiration is like trying to fly without proper wings; one can stay in the air for a while, but then bound to come down and feel miserable. Still, once we get into the process, it’s amazing how one starts feeling when one lets oneself truly feel and express, without trying to suppress the emotions that surge within, even if it is for a short spell of time. Perhaps these emotional upheavals oblige us to understand and to tame them, and written words could assist us in this seemingly arduous task. But, why write? Why not just think? The written word has a certain peculiar permanence about it, which in some ways is there with the spoken word, because it stays in the mind of others, but this permanence is not quite there with the thought word. Though our thoughts build on each other, there is a great deal of attrition in the process, some due to the natural limitations of memory, and others, and these are the crucial ones, due to the brutal excerption by the assumptions that may have taken strong roots in our mind. Some thoughts, due to their old, deep roots, take superiority over others, which is almost arbitrary, unless this superiority is due to a reasoned choice, but even then they need to be revisited. In any case, this kind of attrition and entropy separate the thought word from the written or the spoken word. Writing also helps one realize the flawed logic that may be implicit in some thought. These advantages are crucial when one is basically aiming to understand the true nature of things.
So, is writing an escape, or an easier alternative to the more difficult enterprise of bringing the same rigor to thought, by dealing with games that the mind plays, by actually trying to face reality as it is, in its rawness, without the pollution of mind or language? And what about language? Doesn’t that constrain things further? Certain things cannot be written within the constraints of language, while the boundaries of thoughts are wider. Even though they are also restricted by language, I think the language of thoughts has a wider scope than that of the written word. The written word begets a certain structure, which is not necessary for the thought, which requires a different kind of structure. So, which way is better? Or are there other ways? I am not sure, and I don’t think I can be sure of such things in the foreseeable future. But, I can keep looking for answers. In the meanwhile, I just make do, using a solution that I think is the best and the most useful, knowing very well that there is a possibility that this so-called solution may be destroying something important in my life. That's why life appears to be a long series of efforts to find heuristic solutions to ill-structured problems. I see writing of this type as one such heuristic solution.
Since the written word has a sense of permanence about it, writing is a bold act, and therefore the act of writing is also an expression of faith in the possibility of the risk, if any, being worthwhile, because of a hope of succeeding in making oneself understand what is behind the words, the hope of discovering oneself in the process of turning the feelings (and the analysis that gets inextricably linked to them in a mind condemned to be a slave of reason) into bare words. This sense of permanence is not just related to other people reading these words. Even if no one else were to ever see the words written, the sense of permanence plays itself out during the act of writing. One is conscious of the words being written, continuously considering and reconsidering. I wonder if pure spontaneity is possible, except of course in poetry, especially the Haiku-type poetry.
In writing, I do try to stay true to myself because most of all I want to make sense of things, ease my suffering, embrace my existence, and survive as an individual.
