there's always room to grow
Sep. 22nd, 2013 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anonymousblackit's striking, the mutual resilience and fragility of the writing urge. what's most curious is how they can cycle through my system at the same time, almost feeding off each other; almost responsible for each other. oh, i think: how i would love to be writing. how it would help me connect with this moment, put my feet in my shoes. oh, how i could be writing. the things i could write: then, i think of that blank page. rollerball lurching under the date, trying to think of a first word, trying to correct my first word with the second: so instead i just stay in bed.
i could artfully invoke fashionable names, i could splash my text with references to ideologies people like me would need to secretly research. i need banks of knowledge, access to the store of universal obscurities. the language of the educated, the cerebral beauties of meaningful content. is it what i need?
what i need is an image. a foothold to climb out of my head. i keep coming up against the ugly simplicity of how small my mind is. how uncomplicated, really: how little i am truly capable of innovation, of groundbreaking insight, of engaging ideas. of storytelling, real, genuine storytelling. i start out devising a plot and end up writing a seven page treatise on the various types, advantages and pitfalls of drugstore candle brands. i'd believed i was intelligent, at one point or another--and i am, at least, attentive, but really: intelligence is something more than being able to follow the red bouncing dot over the lyrical emphasis. just because i'm more aware than a person here or there, more aware in this way or that, it doesn't mean i've achieved Real Awareness. it doesn't mean anything, really: chances are i'm no more or less aware than anyone, depending on the perspective. humbling?
that's about the size, where you put your eyes.
a dream where sky blue walls are painted with constellations. because the heavens continue to surround us even when we are distracted with sunblock and roller coasters? the things in our universe continue to exist, even when we don't pay attention to them. there is no "subtext," just what's happening in another room or somebody else's skull. the situations we don't observe or acknowledge.
the stories we neglect to tell ourselves.
every now and then you meet a boy in his second year of college who tells you he doesn't know anything--like it's this profound insight, like it's certification that, in reality, he is the wisest person you could possibly ever know. it's a paradox, right? except this: you do know something. you know when you need to urinate. generally, you know when you need to eat. you often know when something makes you angry, or sad, or indignant, even if you aren't always sure why. body knowledge and emotional knowledge, what, too primitive to count? too simplistic? too feminine? sophomore boy smiles: see? i don't even know the things that i always know, how smart am i now?
imagine: a pissing contest over who is truly the more ignorant.
that's about the size of it.
i could artfully invoke fashionable names, i could splash my text with references to ideologies people like me would need to secretly research. i need banks of knowledge, access to the store of universal obscurities. the language of the educated, the cerebral beauties of meaningful content. is it what i need?
what i need is an image. a foothold to climb out of my head. i keep coming up against the ugly simplicity of how small my mind is. how uncomplicated, really: how little i am truly capable of innovation, of groundbreaking insight, of engaging ideas. of storytelling, real, genuine storytelling. i start out devising a plot and end up writing a seven page treatise on the various types, advantages and pitfalls of drugstore candle brands. i'd believed i was intelligent, at one point or another--and i am, at least, attentive, but really: intelligence is something more than being able to follow the red bouncing dot over the lyrical emphasis. just because i'm more aware than a person here or there, more aware in this way or that, it doesn't mean i've achieved Real Awareness. it doesn't mean anything, really: chances are i'm no more or less aware than anyone, depending on the perspective. humbling?
that's about the size, where you put your eyes.
a dream where sky blue walls are painted with constellations. because the heavens continue to surround us even when we are distracted with sunblock and roller coasters? the things in our universe continue to exist, even when we don't pay attention to them. there is no "subtext," just what's happening in another room or somebody else's skull. the situations we don't observe or acknowledge.
the stories we neglect to tell ourselves.
every now and then you meet a boy in his second year of college who tells you he doesn't know anything--like it's this profound insight, like it's certification that, in reality, he is the wisest person you could possibly ever know. it's a paradox, right? except this: you do know something. you know when you need to urinate. generally, you know when you need to eat. you often know when something makes you angry, or sad, or indignant, even if you aren't always sure why. body knowledge and emotional knowledge, what, too primitive to count? too simplistic? too feminine? sophomore boy smiles: see? i don't even know the things that i always know, how smart am i now?
imagine: a pissing contest over who is truly the more ignorant.
that's about the size of it.
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no subject
Date: 2013-09-27 08:27 am (UTC)So i know how all of this feels. But I also know how I feel, as a long-time reader and friend of yours. And I truly don't care if you lack Real Awareness or hip names or any of that, because it would all go right over my head. If candles get you up out of bed and writing, then write about that, about how it feels like to be you, and your memories of candles.
I don't care if it's Good or Real or Better or Best. If it's been done before, I probably wouldn't notice. I just want you to write what you know and to write it with your heart because I know you love to write and I love to read what you write. And I'm not the only one.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-27 11:12 pm (UTC)i still don't know how to make one of those hearts on lj, but if i did, it would be here.