“There's a scheme of evasion which has gotten into everybody. It's as though people were to say: "I get home dog tired after a terrible day out in that jungle, and then I don't want to think about it. Enough! I want to be brainwashed. I'm going to have my dinner and drink some beer, and I'm going to sit watching TV until I pass out - because that's how I feel." That means people are not putting up a struggle for the human part of themselves. - Saul Bellow (1915- ). "'Matters have gotten out of hand,' in a Violent Society," U.S. News & World Report, 28 June 1982
What is the human part of ourselves? If we are avoiding the human part of ourselves by going home and passing out, that activity whereby we enter into the home after along day and decide that, for now, we want to just experience without doing, to become a couch potato, then the part of us which we are neglecting is that part of us which is a 'do-er'. Of course we need to rest from time to time, and there are definitely certain situations where it is beneficial for us to rest and retire format he storms and crashes of the world, but I think that what this quote is talking about is the tendency to fall into the trap of being that, and not just doing that. When we do something, partake in an action, then that action is in movement. To do is to be involved in the world in such a way that one changes the world, and ourselves. To do is, to move in a spiral, to not be simply a bump on a log, or to have a name thrust upon you, but rather to make yourself a name. What we attempt to do, we are also able to fail at, where when we are, then we cannot be not there. However, we can also be in a situation whereas we are trying to be in a certain way, and failing in that. This happens when we try to 'be at' a party, 'be with' a friend, or 'be as' a writer, for example. We sometimes have the experience of alienation from a situation, of being part of a group and having out, but at the same time feeling that we are not successfully engaging with the moment. Our mind wonders, and we can feel that we are not part of the conversation, that we are more of an observer to the moment and the crowd then part of it,. We are strangers In a strange land, and have no brothers or sisters. When this happens too often, we can zone out, we can become bored, and we can eventually decide that we will stop trying. We will not go out with friends, and we will stop trying to write.
The experience of writer's block is not the same as giving up on writing. True, often we need time to gather our thoughts, and thoughts which we need to gather, but a single day or night of being unable to write is not a failure of writing. It is only a storing up of energy. One of the best ways to get over writer's block, which I have found works for me, is to just sit down in front of a blank page and start writing. I mean - writing anything. Indeed, half of the things I start to write, the very first sentence is some variation on: "I don't know what to write". / Much of what we produce from that is pure crap, but that experience is a much better one than totally giving up. Something which makes it hard to write though, is having music on or listening to a podcast. It is too fast to engage with, and writing takes a long time. Or at least, I have found this to be what happens to me. I recognize now what has been bad for my writing and made it more difficult, and so I, now, also realize that when I want to write but I also decide to watch TV shows, or doom-scroll on social media, that what I am really doing is trying to distract myself. I am, by pretending to do something engaging and interesting to me, actually giving up on producing something. I am simply consuming, and eventually the food changes from being interesting and thought-provoking, to being merely chemically engaging. I fail to write, or to write well.
If I want to be more myself and to deal with my problems, and stresses, then I need to write. I need to talk and make, to create and do. I still sti in front of a television on occasion, but now I feel sick when I sit in front of it for too long. There is too much going on in my head, and I can't watch the characters anymore - I have to be a character. A character in my own head, for if I am not, then I am not interested in myself. It's like watching a rerun of an old show which has, long ago, fallen from grace. I've gone on too long, and I need to fight for myself again. I need to try, because to lay down and gaze longer than a sheep or a cow does, is to not be human anymore, to not do human.
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