 |
| Lens on Life, Steve Brown, 2016 |
I discovered long ago in collecting and classifying marine animals that what I found was closely intermeshed with how I felt at the moment. External reality has a way of being not so external after all.
--John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, 1961
When you've seen beyond yourself then you may findPeace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
and life flows on within you and without you.
--George Harrison, "Within You Without You," 1967
I'm a good writer. I'd be a better writer if I spent more time on revision. Still, here's the difference between a writer and a nonwriter:
A nonwriter cares immensely about what they will say--so much so, often nothing ever gets on the page. Nonwriters are guarded. They want to know the world will be okay with what they have to say before they ever say it. They worry about what their audience will think before any word ever hits the page. If they are bold, they will make an outline to try and order their thoughts to make sure they are acceptable to the world before they really have even discovered if they have thoughts to share or not. They want a clear plan before they precede. Using that outline, and having a deadline, they may force something out, but being a child born out of fear, the work will be guarded, constrained, and have little to say. It may fit in well with what is expected, meet whatever requirements caused its creation, but it will be too timid and too proper to offer the world much.
At the moment of creation, writers don't care much about what they write. They just get something down and trust the process: that, as you write, something good will come, and that through the revision and editing process, you will be able to make whatever comes better. Writers are willing to be vulnerable, not because they want to, but because they know it's the only way. Nothing memorable was ever written from an author who was holding back, trying to please the world.
In fact, the best writers know their best writing doesn't come from them. They accept the muse in an act of humility and know that they are not the source of genius and wisdom and beauty that sometimes arrives on the page while they write. They have to know this because they know the bundling fools that they are themselves in real life. They may not know where that golden sentence that just arrived came from, but they do know it wasn't them. They've felt the awe of their hand being directed to say more than they know, or at least more than they knew they knew. Real writing is a act of discovery, not merely a means of conveying what is already known. That is where the energy is. It can't be outlined, drafted, planned, built. It must arrive organically, in it's own time and fashion. However, it can be made even more powerful through revision.
As a novice in happiness, I'm beginning to understand that real living isn't very different from real writing. It must come from a place of openness to whatever reality exists at that moment. One can't cloister oneself from what is and live life fully simultaneously. You often can't control what the world throws at you. If you were born in a slum in Bangladesh, and if you haven't gotten out, and if it's an extra heavy monsoon season, you will not be happy there until you embrace the poverty and water that surround you. And here's the thing most people don't know--you will not be happy even if you do get out and move someplace like Phoenix, Arizona. You will take the slum and the rain with you. It's impossible to run towards happiness. Hopping on a jet, moving to a new city is a reset, a do-over, not a move forward. Ripping up chapters in your book in anger is a reset, a do-over, not a move forward. Dumping your spouse and marrying your mistress is a reset, a do-over, not a move forward. Whatever you are running from will just run faster and catch up with you.
Likewise, if you were born high above the velvety smog in Manhattan in a luxurious loft of white leather, stainless steel and glass walls open to the world all around and below you, and conversations around the dinner table as cold as the glass curtain walls on Christmas morning, the nanny up bright and early to try and make you have a wonderful day even though Daddy is away on business and Mommy is passed out in bed and isn't likely to arise until two this afternoon. If that is you, you will not be happy until you embrace the altitude, the luxury, your missing Daddy and your passed-out Mommy. Your single-wide trailer on the windswept plains of Nebraska and your job as a waitress at the truck stop out on I-80 won't save you. It's impossible to run towards happiness. Hopping on a jet, moving to a new city is a reset, a do-over. Ripping up chapters in your book in anger in ager is a reset, a do-over, not a move forward. Dumping your spouse and marrying your mistress is a reset, a do-over, not a move forward. Whatever you are running from will just run faster and catch up with you.
We cannot transcend what is, until we embrace it. Yet, how we experience what is depends completely on the lens we use to view the world. That lens is shaped (or misshaped) and polished (or chipped) by both our external and internal worlds. The external storms are hard to control (though not impossible), but how we experience them is greatly determined by how we perceive them, and that has everything to do with polishing our lenses.
That is where revision comes in. A good writer polishes rough, opaque stones into jewels radiating with light by revising over and over again what is already on the page; likewise one good at living polishes rough, opaque stones into jewels radiating with light by revising over and over again what is their life. The do-over's are small, calculated, and repetitive, slowly knocking off and smoothing over the blemishes, so that the beauty of what is intrinsic isn't lost in the process. Constant, calculated revision is the only means to perfection. No matter how many times we take a sledge hammer to our lives, we end up with the same pile of rubble on the floor. Yet, it's astonishing how many people try that over and over again, actually trying to pummel themselves into some sort of nirvana through sledge-hammer do-over's: it's my career that's making me unhappy, it's simply meaningless; no, it's my wife, she just doesn't understand me; it's my children, I love them, I just wasn't really cut out to be a father. So, here comes the hammer--that move, that diet, that break-up, that meditation, that divorce, that new multi-level marketing scheme, some drastic change (any drastic change), that will at last make us happy. But it never works until we realize it's slow, continual change that turns an ordinary man into Gandhi, until we realize, to quote Brandon Flowers (who is probably quoting someone else) "When the mountain comes back to life / It doesn't come from without / It comes from within".
I want to say more, but not yet. Instead, here, I want to go back to the beginning, and do some revision. I think for the time being, slowing down and tweaking what I've already said may be more effective than adding more to what already is:
The merely-existing care immensely about what they will experience--so much so, they never fully experience anything, even if they have jumped out of a plane or swam with sharks. They are guarded. They want to know the world will be okay with who they are before they know that for themselves. They worry about what the world will think before they've done anything to be remembered by. If they are bold, they will make an outline to try and order their lives to make sure their choices are acceptable to the world. They want a clear plan before they precede. Using that outline, and setting deadlines, they may force something productive out, but their dream being born out of fear will be guarded, constrained, and have little to offer them. It may fit in well with what is expected, meet whatever requirements caused its creation, but it will be too timid and too proper to offer the dreamer much. Even after having gained the admiration of the world, the merely-existing will simply continue to merely exist.
In the moment, those who truly live don't care much about what their reality is--although they do care immensely about what they do with that reality. They just do and trust the process: that, as you do, something good will come, and that through the revision and editing process, they will be able to make whatever comes better. They are willing to be vulnerable, not because they want to, but because they know it's the only way. No memorable life was ever written by an author who was holding back, trying to please the world.
In fact, those who truly live know that the best in life doesn't come from them. They accept the muse in an act of humility and know that they are not the source of genius and wisdom and beauty that sometimes arrives in their life. They have to know this because they know the bundling fools that they are themselves. They may not know where that golden light that just arrived came from, but they do know it wasn't them. They've felt the awe of their life being directed to places where they can feel more than they feel, or at least more than they knew they could feel. Real living is a act of discovery, not merely a means of safely reliving what is already known. That is where the energy is. It can't be outlined, drafted, planned, built. It must arrive organically, in it's own time and fashion. However, life can be made even more powerful through revision, by polishing your lenses to allow in more light.
I write to allow more time for the light that comes from living to sink in deep where I can feel its energy touch bone.
No comments:
Post a Comment