- Franz Kafka
I've been writing for perhaps seven years in something that - on a long time horizon at least - resembles a routine. Beyond that, I struggle to describe what it adds up to, perhaps because superficially, it adds up to very little, except a large number of pages filled and a large proportion of stories unfinished. But issues of focus and work ethic aside, there is no concrete thing that I am striving for - I'm not trying to finish a book (though I have fixated, at times, on the idea of bundling one or more collections of writing), and I'm not trying to express some particular worldview - at least not explicitly.
Of course, the truth is that I not only possess a worldview, but am rather consumed by it - both needing to understand how I should be living my life, and observing how that worldview evolves over time with new experiences. But, I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
There is an undercurrent to my sensory experiences of the world - the way my feelings color every moment, the way I am more than a computer, recording events - a gap between objective and subjective experience. What I have come to know - and more so yet as I have gotten older, and come to understand the common boundaries of the material world - is that I feel a grandeur and sanctity to existence that can only be experienced when the noise of the material world is adequately quieted. And though I can't hear it when the world is noisy around me, it comes to me without fail when I produce the proper conditions. From this, I can only conclude that it is always there, underneath everything, waiting for me.
Whether we're talking about simple emotion or this mysterious "otherness," you can call the difference between my experience and that of a computer a soul, or whatever you want, but as far as I can tell, my worldview is in service to it. I want to feel better more, and bad less, but I also want to silence the material world and learn to hear existence as it actually is. To be greedier yet, I want to share those experiences with others. I'm not sure how many ways this can be done, but I do know one, for sure: just teach someone to slow down, and listen in this way. That has to be the best way, when successful, because they will be seeing the world through the filter of their own soul. But, it's not the only way.
Writing has, on so many occasions, given me an opportunity to examine that other world - the one that transcends the material world and extends into something greater, and perhaps eternal. When I go back and read my writing later, with the distance of time, I see time and again that both the narrative and formalistic framing of the story pays substantial attention to the gap between objective and subjective experience. In some cases, there is still something of a proper narrative, and it is simply tinted by the formalistic frame. In other cases, the story itself seems only interested in exposing the characteristics of that other world.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to make the latter follow the arc of a proper short story, and for a long time I couldn't figure out why. Essentially, I would try to impart an artificial narrative onto the top of the story, to give it shape. But, doing so never produced the shape the story wants. I'm at a bit of a loss for how to proceed, now, knowing that I have chosen the *wrong* narratives. The only question left, I believe, is whether any narrative is possible that will marry up to the formalistic frame I wish to use.
It's probably a semantic matter in the argument I've made above, that I have yet to detect. Oh well - onward I press.
I've been writing for perhaps seven years in something that - on a long time horizon at least - resembles a routine. Beyond that, I struggle to describe what it adds up to, perhaps because superficially, it adds up to very little, except a large number of pages filled and a large proportion of stories unfinished. But issues of focus and work ethic aside, there is no concrete thing that I am striving for - I'm not trying to finish a book (though I have fixated, at times, on the idea of bundling one or more collections of writing), and I'm not trying to express some particular worldview - at least not explicitly.
Of course, the truth is that I not only possess a worldview, but am rather consumed by it - both needing to understand how I should be living my life, and observing how that worldview evolves over time with new experiences. But, I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
There is an undercurrent to my sensory experiences of the world - the way my feelings color every moment, the way I am more than a computer, recording events - a gap between objective and subjective experience. What I have come to know - and more so yet as I have gotten older, and come to understand the common boundaries of the material world - is that I feel a grandeur and sanctity to existence that can only be experienced when the noise of the material world is adequately quieted. And though I can't hear it when the world is noisy around me, it comes to me without fail when I produce the proper conditions. From this, I can only conclude that it is always there, underneath everything, waiting for me.
Whether we're talking about simple emotion or this mysterious "otherness," you can call the difference between my experience and that of a computer a soul, or whatever you want, but as far as I can tell, my worldview is in service to it. I want to feel better more, and bad less, but I also want to silence the material world and learn to hear existence as it actually is. To be greedier yet, I want to share those experiences with others. I'm not sure how many ways this can be done, but I do know one, for sure: just teach someone to slow down, and listen in this way. That has to be the best way, when successful, because they will be seeing the world through the filter of their own soul. But, it's not the only way.
Writing has, on so many occasions, given me an opportunity to examine that other world - the one that transcends the material world and extends into something greater, and perhaps eternal. When I go back and read my writing later, with the distance of time, I see time and again that both the narrative and formalistic framing of the story pays substantial attention to the gap between objective and subjective experience. In some cases, there is still something of a proper narrative, and it is simply tinted by the formalistic frame. In other cases, the story itself seems only interested in exposing the characteristics of that other world.
Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to make the latter follow the arc of a proper short story, and for a long time I couldn't figure out why. Essentially, I would try to impart an artificial narrative onto the top of the story, to give it shape. But, doing so never produced the shape the story wants. I'm at a bit of a loss for how to proceed, now, knowing that I have chosen the *wrong* narratives. The only question left, I believe, is whether any narrative is possible that will marry up to the formalistic frame I wish to use.
It's probably a semantic matter in the argument I've made above, that I have yet to detect. Oh well - onward I press.
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