On Writing

Lately I’ve been asked by friends or acquaintances what I’m doing – what I’m up to. It’s a standard greeting, not meant to pry, and usually draws a brief run-down of my exceedingly mundane exploits.

“Oh, not that much,” I say. “Working around my place, helping Zoe with college applications, doing a little writing.” At this point my voice usually trails off. Sometimes I’m asked what I’m writing about. My general response is, “Different things. You know, the usual political stuff. I’m even playing around with fiction.” Occasionally there’s some interest around the ‘fiction’ part, but if pressed further I usually dodge the answer.

I do this avoidance dance for two reasons: One, because I really believe that talking about one’s writing when it’s ongoing takes the energy away from it, as well as the impetus to continue with it. I know it works that way with me. The second reason is that often I don’t know what I’m going to write until I start to do it. Often I don’t go into it with a game plan. I’ll just go with the thoughts that arise and see where it goes.

If I were to answer the “doing” question truthfully though, I’d say, “Mostly I’m spending my time writing. There are other things I’m attending to, but mostly I’m writing.” I haven’t had the courage to say this because it seems too lazy, arrogant, cerebral, self-important, effete, indulgent, and half the other descriptors in the dictionary. So I’m stuck mouthing a phony answer, and avoiding talking about what it is I’m really doing. Here’s what I would say to the question if I could manage to do it in just a couple of sentences.

I’m writing. I’m a writer. That’s what I do a good deal of the time. It doesn’t mean anything in saying this other than stating the activity I’m most engaged in. It doesn’t suggest that I’m any good at it, or that the writing is good, bad or indifferent. That’s for others to judge. It’s just something I do the way other people garden, or play golf, or go fishing or paint pictures. As for the reasons I do this, that’s another part of the story.

Dialogue with myself

One reason I write is that it’s fully absorbing. Paradoxically it both takes me out of myself, and at the same time puts me into myself more deeply. When I’m writing I am totally focused on the thoughts that come up, and then the ensuing challenge to express these thoughts as accurately and succinctly as possible. That’s the game, and I’ve been captivated by it from early on. The writer gets caught up in the thinking-writing process, and for brief periods the egoic “I” or “me” is on hold, or out of the office so to speak. Breaking free of the watchful, almost always present “me” is liberating. It frees me from the presence of that hovering critical observer.

At the same time, because writing stimulates the thinking process, it gives the writer the chance to find out shat he/se really thinks about something. For instance I’ve found out that I don’t know what I truly think about something until I’ve given it a lot of thought. We all voice our opinions about things – politics, relationships, cultural conditions, entertainment, what-have-you – often and freely. But I wonder if most of what we have to say on these matters is really what we think, or merely what we’ve adopted from what others think; people whose opinions bombard us from TV, radio and print. Are we just parroting the thoughts of others we respect or admire and passing it off as our own? How much of what we mouth as our opinions, our thoughts on some matter, is the result of finely attuning to our own thoughts – finding out through close examination what it is we really think about some matter? My guess is, very little.

So for me an important function of writing is finding out what it is I truly think about something by taking the time to think about the arguments and merits of the matter and working it out on paper. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the outcome is some brilliant conclusion – often that’s not the case. Too often it leads to further indecision and the realization I don’t know enough to form a conclusive opinion.

And that’s the seemingly contradictory nature of writing, for me: A way to lose myself and a way to find myself.

The critic

Another reason I write is to give voice to the critic: To voice my dissent, dissatisfaction, dismay and disgust with so much I see going on all around. I write because I feel compelled to comment on the scene. I’d say it in the poetry of songs if I could, but I can’t. I don’t have that talent.

I write to voice my disapproval about how things are and why I think it should be different. Anger and frustration are the usual motivators, and I’m egotistical enough to think I have something of value to say. About ten years ago I began writing a newsletter commenting on the local scene in Sonoma, and mouthing off about the local issues of the day. A small number of friends (5-6) joined me in this endeavor.

Writing and publishing the newsletter brought me in contact with some of the local policy makers and others of some influence in our little town, and I got a closer look at some of the behind the scene goings on. It provided a crash course education in the workings of the local power structure. Not that it will come as news, but what became markedly clear was how much sway the local paper had in generating and manipulating public opinion.

Like almost all communities ours has power brokers, generally based on the strength of their wallets, and how entrenched they are on the basis of longevity in these here parts. This filters down in turn to those who feed off these individuals’ dealings in the usual parasitic relationships that commonly abound. Other players of note are elected politicians who affect matters by forming policy and the regulations to back it all up. Occasionally even bureaucratic hired hands such as city managers have managed to cut a formidable swath, but they come and go more frequently whereas city councils and rich families seem to last interminably.

The newsletter publication provided me a platform for regularly shooting my mouth off about the local scene, its kabuki culture, and what was not being reported in the local paper. It also gave me a pulpit, albeit self-ordained, to voice my comments on the issues, events and human follies being played out far beyond the borders of Sonoma. This is where I began to try and hone the craft of commentary and essay writing. I’m still at that pursuit.

I don’t really know what it is that so drives me to respond to what I read, hear or see going on around me, but it is absolutely compelling. I don’t think I could not do it for very long. I think it’s an addiction that starts innocently enough with an occasional letter to the editor of some paper, but gradually and insidiously gets you hooked to the point where you have to comment in writing about something every day. Fortunately this addiction doesn’t cost very much, so my family is not going without food or clothing as a result. Well, maybe not all the clothes that would satisfy an 18 year-old daughter.

Finally, though not completely, my compulsory writing is equivalent to a dog marking its territory. It says, “I am here, of this time and place. This smell/thought is me. If you come into my territory you’ll have to deal with me. I am here; woof, woof.”

Writing is my way of marking my stay and passage on Earth. I’ve no delusions that I’m anything but a most ordinary person of no outstanding qualities or characteristics whatsoever. But even though I don’t consider myself special in any way, I’m still inexplicably driven to express as truthfully as I can how I interpret and therefore experience this journey of a lifetime.

I’ve little doubt that what I have to say in this regard is of much interest to other than a relative few, and that’s an optimistic assessment. Nonetheless there is this urge to put the thoughts and feelings down in some form – words in my case – for others to see.

Billions of us humans infest this planet, and from a certain aerial distance we seem nothing more than ants. Yet because we are each endowed with the faculty of self- awareness and self-reflection we experience our lives in a personal way. How we interpret and understand the world and our experiences in it is subjective, based on the sum of these experiences and those things – people, ideas, circumstances, etc. – that we’ve come into contact with and been influenced by.

We may be nothing more than swarms of ants, but each and every one of us is a package of experiences and stories uniquely our own. It’s this I want to convey. Maybe all of us ants want to tell our stories: This is what happened to me; this is how I see it; this is what it feels like to me. I expect that’s true, and I think we do it in ways other than writing it down. But that’s how this one does it. In answer to your question.