Writing

The things here center on writing, the reasons for writing, and some of the things that drive a writer to write [at least this writer].

We spend our lives gathering varying sized piles of knowledge; it and we fade; we die, You better write down the better pieces of that which you have acquired or the world will have to learn it all over again. When you give back some of the insights you have learned, you give individuals in the next generation a little head start on their knowledge and experience gathering journey.

My most valuable collections are in my mind. It is my responsibility to gather and present these collections to the world so that others do not have to go through my lifetime of often difficult and painful learning to discover the same thoughts. Even if I do not learn much else, I need to report what I have gathered of value and put it in the world for others. Even if only one thing among all others makes it through to someone, the effort is worthwhile.

The thoughts of every individual are unique and those thus who write (except the copiers) write unique text. Everyone should write and/or speak his/her own words so others can use them to help themselves on their journeys to the center of their beings so they, in turn can do their writing. Then with a little cataloging and indexing, the combined writings slowly build up the global knowledge base. Each new writing refines and adds to the whole. With luck, the slag, the useless parts, float to the top to be scraped off and discarded while the pure metal can be poured off into ingots of books for future refining.

In other words: I want to write to consolidate and pass on to the next generations a few of the things I have been able to distill out of the streams of consciousness that have flowed past me over the years. I have no illusions of writing something altogether new, or even somewhat new. But I can put my own spin on what has probably been said a hundred times before. I can provide my insights to old questions and old answers. Maybe my tilt will provide just what some reader needs to take him/her down a brand new path of discovery. Maybe your words will do the same.

I am frustrated because I have so many things wandering around in my head ready to burst forth, but I have no pattern to apply it to, no appropriate containers to hold and present their contents. Maybe it is better to worry about recording the content than to worry about the containers that will hold the content. Write the words and the writing may suggest the context. That may be happening just here as I write this document with all its disjointed pieces.

The aim of all writing, like most of what is in this document, is to lead the reader inside to see his/her own connection with the creative source of all deep within each of us and all around us.

At times, when I finally get around to writing, I start to question my authority to write about the subject. The answer has to be that if I have thought it through, I have just as much right as another to write about it. I may not be an expert and others may have looked much deeper into the subject. But in the end my particular bent may be new or it may be just the answer someone else needs to move them on their journey. If that happens for only one, it is worth the effort. That said, I will likely never know whether my words were able to help another. I surely cannot know that before I write and I'll probably not learn that afterwards. That's not important.

I have get over that "it has to be complete and unattackable before I can write about it." Even if it is all wrong and it gets others to think and develop their story, it is doing some good, it contributes to creation. Perfection is not an option. [this current effort grabs this paragraph and runs with it producing something for you to read and digest while it is riddled with unfilled holes and untied ends.]

Many spiritual and meditative teachers tell you to stand or sit peacefully and silently waiting for your instructions. But I find sitting quietly more sleep-inducing than inspiration-conducive. So I madly write hoping that the inspiration jumps out from between the words and paragraphs and spaces on my page to tell me whatever it has to tell me.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. -signature line on an email.

My Task

So knowing that creation is my task, what do I add? My books, my films, my programs, my songs. How? Write. Write. Write. Refine. Refine. Refine. Work. Work. Work. Photograph. Photograph. Photograph. Let your pen flow across the paper. Let the ink draw the new story.

Sitting watching my pen flow across the page I mused on what was to happen in Sicily. The pen was telling me I was going not only to sit in, walk through, drink in, and digest a multi-faceted island culture. But I was going to begin to synthesize the objects of creation that were to be the subject of the rest of my creative life. I was not going so much to see Sicily as I was going to retreat, to renew, to blossom, to metamorphize. Were they just words? Yes and no. Though they did nothing in being written, the very action of writing begins their life.

That I write is more important than what I write. For I must communicate the internal and external unity of all, the unity I see day in and day out through my soul's eye. The problem, the task, is to find a way to speak the unspeakable to say "that which is known cannot be communicated."

"If you know, there is nothing to be said to you; if you do not know, there is nothing that can be said to you to make you understand." - Lao Tsu? [and several others]

The task is to get beyond the dilemma, to find a way to lead the unknowing, the unfeeling, the unloving, to the knowledge, feeling, and love that is the source of all. The task is to work toward knowing myself what that unknowing knowing is, what that known unknown does/is for/of/in me. We are all one, yet we are all different.