"Enough"
Dedicated to Z.E.
Every Spring I am struck by the realization that as real, as painful, as disturbing as the burdens that weigh down on our lives may be, a sunny day can do a great deal to make things seem different. People smile more, they let down their guards, and sitting outside doing absolutely nothing seems like a worthwhile goal in of itself. It feels like “enough,” if that makes sense. Like God gave us this world in order to enjoy it- period. I go indoors when I need to work on my papers. Only in air-conditioning and artificial light can I feel like my investigation of the liturgical use of puns in the poetry of George Herbert is a worthwhile endeavor.
I would like to write a paper that could compete with the sunny day. One that could make people reading it feel- this, this is enough- this is what it’s all about. Next best thing would be feeling that myself, with someone, with something, in a sustained way. I don’t think you can do both by the way. You can’t feel blissful satisfaction and also transmit it to others (except by example, I guess). Why? Because of politics, the difficulty of writing, getting your word out, needing to stay in the library, get a job, kiss-up to important people, repeat, explain, translate etc…Good teachers see it as craft, something that needs to be painstakingly prepared for- bad teachers see it as a higher calling that they need only transmit through their enthusiasm. The person who writes well about the sunny day will never be the same person who enjoys it fully. The person who writes beautifully and pointedly about love or religion will never, please tell me if you disagree here, be fully sustained by either. How can you really explain something to someone else unless you are on the outside, a little bit? Why should you need to explain it, if you have it, anyway?
All of this creates this strange cycle wherein the people who act as the mediators of "higher meaning" in the modern world, English professors, clergy, whoever, can only do a successful job if they are very much in touch with all the not so meaningful things necessary to get their word out there. They need to stand outside their message to a certain degree. The people who are actually content don’t care to write about it, why suffer through all the politics when the sun is shining outside and desk jobs pay so much better anyway. But those content people use a vocabulary they have learned from all the stressed out, annoying, academics; they attribute their deep satisfaction to adherence to religions perpetuated by things like advertising, fundraising, lobbying etc... So strange. This cycle is probably a lot more complicated then I am making it out to be. But good blogging by laypeople is probably the only way to put an end to it. That I’m pretty sure about…
5 comments:
I would hope that some people who write are coming from a place where they're really experiencing something completely, and perhaps overflowing with the experience. I think that a large part of writing is that-- the need to share what one truly and genuinely feels with readers. If not, what is the point?
I understand that people who are making a living writing often feel bound by the norms of any job, pleasing the right people, sometimes selling out to get bread on the table-- but I imagine that at the core, writers feel some of that initial overflowing of the experience that compells them to share.
At least when you are on the outside, you can judge something objectively...
But Sarah, think of it in reverse. Do you think that someone in intense pain, depression, or agony is similarly dissociated from his or her feelings when writing of them?
I personally find that being in such emotional states adds a permeating quality to the words that makes them even more real.
As always, I feel obliged to throw in a literary reference, this time again by Yehuda Amichai from his poem "Diyuk ha'kev v'tishtush ha'osher"
טישטוש האושר ודיוק הכאב
ואני רוצה לתאר בדיוק של כאב חד גם
את האושר העמום ואת השמחה
למדתי לדבר אצל כאבים
(my translation)
Blurriness of happiness and precision of pain
And I want to describe with the precision of sharp pain also
The deep happiness and joy.
I learned to speak through pains
I think I agree with you Josh, and nice job on the translation. But I wasn't talking about pain, I was talking about satisfaction, those are different kinds of emotions I think. Even in that Amichai piece, he seems to suggest that happiness and joy are far more difficult to translate into poetry then pain is-hence the "precision" he can only find in suffering. And Ellie, I think this speaks to your point as well. I wouldnt argue against writers being able to express emotions- but the particular emotion of peace, chill, whatever it is- doesn't seem like it works well with all the demands of the writing process. Zat eez all.
Sarah,
Heschel says (I'm not sure I've remembered the quote exactly), "We can only speak of God in the presence of God."
Two things:
1) Perhaps there seems to be a disconnect between the one experiencing and the one writing about the experience because the ability to hold both at once is rare and special. This doesn't mean it is impossible. The desire to articulate an experience can be very powerful (not to mention difficult) and I'm not sure the attempt to describe requires stepping back from the experience. I used to think it was until I had a conversation with someone about how people often comment (or moan ) when eating good tasting food. I thought the articulation was a reduction of the experience. My brother-in-law claimed, "That's what people do. We comment on our experience. And the commenting is a part of the experience." The phenomenon you describe sounds to me to be one particular way of writing. This might be overly academic, but I don't think you should feel like any writing you do must be restrained, or confined, to this method. Try writing outside. Or maybe there's something you care more deeply about, and writing about this wouldn't require the disconnect you discuss.
2) Don't forget the role of memory. Maybe, while inside the library, it seems like the Sunny Day has disappeared. But, if you can keep it in your mind while you write, it is still there. Moreover, the act of writing can, itself, be a form of the Sunny Day. And, even if it is not, because of struggle that writing often requires, when the work is finished, you can sit back and enjoy its Sunny Dayness.
PS Guess who?
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