Recently, I read something that argued that there is no such thing as writer’s block, and that, in fact, writer’s block was essentially just an excuse for people who don’t want to work hard. That reminded me of one of the books about that I really dislike. (Sources that I dislike will remain nameless because I’d rather not write bad things about people.) The idea that writer’s block doesn’t exist is something of a pet peeve of mine: I find it annoying beyond the scope of the claim’s significance. People who talk about experiencing "writer's block" are talking about something, and arguing that those people are just being lazy strikes me as facile and insulting. Plenty of people who struggle with writer's block are anything but lazy. I'm not going to provide any set definition, but I want to consider a few issues related to writer's block.
It may be the case that the term "writer's block" is poorly chosen. A book that I do like (Hjortshoj, Understanding Writing Blocks) argues that we should talk about “writing blocks” rather than “writer’s block” because that puts focus on the process and takes focus away from the idea that it is a personal problem. From a strategic perspective—from the perspective of trying to help people get writing—I like Hjortshoj’s point. But on another level, I don’t think that makes “writer’s block” an inaccurate term—in fact, in a way, it is completely accurate to focus on the personal nature of the problem. Blocks in the writing process are intensely personal because the writing process is intensely personal, and losing focus on the personal element can interfere with attempts to understand how to work through individual writing problems.
Even if the term “writer’s block” is not poorly chosen, it is problematic because it is used to describe a wide variety of issues: one person’s block may have very different causes than another person’s. We can generalize and say that these problems are psychological in nature. We would not use “writer’s block” to describe, for example, someone who stopped writing after suffering a stroke, or a brain injury. And, indeed, we also want to say that “writer’s block” is only appropriate to describe someone who has a psychological issue of some significance. “Writer’s block” is not appropriate to describe someone who is just lazy. If you’re not writing because you’d rather do something else because the other thing seems more fun or more appealing, that’s not writer’s block, that’s just your choice about how to spend your time. By parallel, a person can choose to drink alcohol without having a drinking problem—it may not the best choice, but it’s a choice, not a real problem—so, too, can a person choose to avoid writing without having a problem writing (not counting the inherent difficulties of writing, that is).
But once I start to talk about motivation and intention, the discussion moves into slippery territory, and this may be part of what makes it difficult to define writer’s block (and also part of what makes otherwise seemingly intelligent authors write silly things like that there is no such thing as writer’s block because it’s just that people are being lazy). At what point do we say that someone has moved from bad choices to actual dysfunction? I’d rather not get into a debate about where the boundary lies. It’s entirely possible to imagine someone who is supposed to write instead deciding “I’m going to go have fun with my friends.” It’s entirely possible to imagine that this choice was made simply because going to have fun with friends is fun, while writing is difficult (and often not fun at all). It’s also entirely possible to imagine that same choice being made by a repressed fear of writing that leads to avoidance. One of these situations would not be writer’s block, but the other would be or could be.
If we start to think of writer’s block this way--as a pattern of not writing due to some psychological difficulty--we can see it in a variety of ways. In some cases it may be a symptom of some other psychological issue (e.g., depression). In others it might be a problem experienced only in the specific area of writing. Stage fright could be seen as a parallel, in the sense that some cases of stage fright are generally limited to fear of performing in front of others, while other cases are the manifestation of some larger issue, for example a more general social anxiety.
Another issue to consider is that the source of the problem does not always lie with the writer (or at least not with the writer entirely). I worked with a master’s candidate who was struggling because many previous drafts of work had been rejected by the thesis chair with the only feedback being to rewrite the entire thing. Someone who can produce several complete drafts definitely has the ability to write, and a history of producing writing is strong evidence that the writer is capable of writing. But none of that is a guarantee against getting stuck at some point. Repeated, unreasonably bad feedback could certainly cause an aversion to writing in the most reasonable of people. If you start to feel like your efforts are futile, it becomes harder to keep working. while it is true that the writer faced with such unreasonable feedback will need to find some solution somehow—but the best solutions that present (get a thesis chair who will actually try to help you learn! Quit the program and enroll elsewhere) are not writing solutions and my be pretty distasteful in themselves. Finding a solution is still problematic, but it’s useful to keep in mind that there are outside forces that can trigger problems with writing. Struggling against outside barriers can hardly be considered a personal weakness.
At its worst, writer’s block can become a severe and difficult self-reinforcing concern that contributes to other issues. Someone who suffers from depression, for example, might struggle to write due to negative self-opinions or evaluations. In such a case, one bad writing session might lead to self-criticism, which makes the writer feel bad, and which then makes it harder to write the next time. And if writing goes poorly two times in a row, the negative feelings increase, causing problems in the third writing session, etc. A cycle like this a little self-perpetuating: it definitely takes effort to break that cycle. And if the writer starts to focus on the writer’s block as separate from the other issues, it can start to feel as if problems are compounding (“Not only am I depressed, but I have writer’s block, too!”).
To wrap this up, I’d like to note how much I like to avoid semantic debates: trying to precisely define “writer’s block” is just a problem that I don’t want engage. The issue isn’t whether “writer’s block” exists or what “writer’s block” is; the issue is how to get writing and how to write effectively. It seems silly to argue that all writers who are having trouble writing just aren’t trying hard enough. But it also seems silly to think that all writers who are having trouble writing have the same problem. For some, it’s this; for others, it’s that. The specific reasons that a person doesn’t write, and therefore might want to say that he or she has writer’s block, vary wildly from person to person. For some, it might be a mild aversion, for others, it might be related to or caused by significant emotional difficulties, such as depression.
I have not directly answered the question “what is writer’s block?” Nonetheless, I want to conclude by looking forward in the direction of a topic for a separate post: what does one do if one is not writing and suffering from that? What can you do if you are experiencing a writing block? From one perspective, the answer to “writer’s block” is to view it as the symptom of some other problem and then to work on that problem. Focusing on writer’s block itself can distract from doing things that will benefit you. It is meaningful to talk about writer’s block, but only as a symptom of some other problem. From another perspective, the answer is simple, but not easy: develop a good practice.
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2018
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Writing from the heart and writing exercises
Last week I wrote about a scholar who does great work, but whose dissertation has not satisfied its reviewers. I am, to some extent, writing about that same or a tangential concern and a related idea that came up in my creative writer’s group. A poet in the group was talking about submitting work to various journals/e-journals and about his recognition of the tension between writing what he wanted to write and writing what would suit the journal/editor. This is a similar tension to that experienced by a scholar who is trying to please an audience that is in some way hostile to their work. To what extent do you change what you say to please the audience? Especially when the audience has power—power to accept or reject your work? This is, in a way, one face of “selling out”: doing work that you don’t really believe in for financial gain.
To speak of “selling out” focuses on a sacrifice of integrity, and that’s not really where I want to go. I think there is a lot more to the dynamic between writer and audience than a simple, clear assumption that pleasing and audience is always a sacrifice of integrity. There is a balance that can be found between (1) writing for yourself and to be true to your own vision and (2) writing to please an audience, especially one that doesn’t want the same things you do. There’s a lot in this dynamic that I’m not going to discuss in this post. I want to focus on just one suggestion: view the task of writing to please a specific (possibly hostile) audience as an exercise in developing your ideas and your skill as a writer.
A scholar—or any writer—should be aiming to write about things that really matter personally. Write about things that you really care about and believe in. If you’re working on something that you care about and believe in, it’s much easier to do the work, and much more satisfying to work, and that generally means that there’s less danger of writer’s block or avoidance.
But what do you really care about? Is that something that can be expressed in only one way? To what extent can you shape your work to suit your audience without sacrificing your own integrity?
It seems to me that any idea can be expressed in many different ways. It seems to me that most really substantive ideas have multiple dimensions that could be discussed in varying proportion to suit varying audiences.
To put this in terms of poetry, one might choose to express some thought—the transient nature of life, for example—in different poetic forms—sonnet, haiku, etc. Each form shapes how the idea is expressed, but none fundamentally change the underlying idea (or at least none need change the underlying idea—but most writers learn as they write, and learning does change ideas).
When writing to an audience that wants something other than what you want—if you really want to write haiku and your audience is expecting or demanding a sonnet, you can say “I’m not going to do it! I write haiku!” That would lead to something of an impasse. What I am suggesting is that you approach such situations saying to yourself, “Maybe I can learn something from the exercise of writing a sonnet. Maybe I can learn something about my ideas and something about the craft of writing that will help me write better haiku in the future.”
Approach such situations is as an exercise—opportunities to stretch your communicative repertoire. If you don’t want to write what the other person wants to read, and if you think of the task in those terms, you can easily feel resentment for having to work on something that you don’t want to work on. If you say “can I choose words that will satisfy my critical reviewer and also stay true to my purpose?”, then your challenge may not be flavored with resentment—and that’s worth a lot (especially if you are one of those people for whom resentment fuels procrastination).
There is a lot that can be done to shape a presentation of your ideas without sacrificing them or your integrity. Let’s set aside extreme cases where you are called upon to make a statement that directly contradicts your beliefs—if the editor at the journal wants a poem on a subject you don’t want to write about, don’t write it. If your professor wants you to say “Marx was right about everything” and you don’t agree, don’t write it. But if you’re not being forced to a direct contradiction of your beliefs, then look for the challenge of writing your own ideas in a way that will reach the difficult audience. Look for the opportunity to develop your skill as a writer and the opportunity to find a new way to express a familiar idea.
You may need to (temporarily) abandon the ways in which you have previously tried to write about your work. This can be frustrating and difficult, but it can be a great learning experience for a writer—both in terms of developing a greater discursive repertoire and skill as a writer.
Looking for new ways to communicate and old idea doesn’t change the underlying purposes, the underlying quality, or the underlying value of the work. It doesn’t stop the underlying message from being shared with others in other forms. What it does do is stretch the scholar/writer’s ability to bridge communicative and intellectual gaps.
There is a problem in trying to write in a way that reaches people with whom you have fundamental disagreements—trying to write in their language often requires adopting some of the conceptual structures that they use. This makes the exercise in trying to write across these communicative gaps quite difficult while still remaining true to your own vision. But, if you remember to think of the exercise as an exercise—an attempt to develop the ability to write/speak to disparate audiences—then these dangers are challenges to be surmounted, rather than causes to abandon your beliefs.
To speak of “selling out” focuses on a sacrifice of integrity, and that’s not really where I want to go. I think there is a lot more to the dynamic between writer and audience than a simple, clear assumption that pleasing and audience is always a sacrifice of integrity. There is a balance that can be found between (1) writing for yourself and to be true to your own vision and (2) writing to please an audience, especially one that doesn’t want the same things you do. There’s a lot in this dynamic that I’m not going to discuss in this post. I want to focus on just one suggestion: view the task of writing to please a specific (possibly hostile) audience as an exercise in developing your ideas and your skill as a writer.
A scholar—or any writer—should be aiming to write about things that really matter personally. Write about things that you really care about and believe in. If you’re working on something that you care about and believe in, it’s much easier to do the work, and much more satisfying to work, and that generally means that there’s less danger of writer’s block or avoidance.
But what do you really care about? Is that something that can be expressed in only one way? To what extent can you shape your work to suit your audience without sacrificing your own integrity?
It seems to me that any idea can be expressed in many different ways. It seems to me that most really substantive ideas have multiple dimensions that could be discussed in varying proportion to suit varying audiences.
To put this in terms of poetry, one might choose to express some thought—the transient nature of life, for example—in different poetic forms—sonnet, haiku, etc. Each form shapes how the idea is expressed, but none fundamentally change the underlying idea (or at least none need change the underlying idea—but most writers learn as they write, and learning does change ideas).
When writing to an audience that wants something other than what you want—if you really want to write haiku and your audience is expecting or demanding a sonnet, you can say “I’m not going to do it! I write haiku!” That would lead to something of an impasse. What I am suggesting is that you approach such situations saying to yourself, “Maybe I can learn something from the exercise of writing a sonnet. Maybe I can learn something about my ideas and something about the craft of writing that will help me write better haiku in the future.”
Approach such situations is as an exercise—opportunities to stretch your communicative repertoire. If you don’t want to write what the other person wants to read, and if you think of the task in those terms, you can easily feel resentment for having to work on something that you don’t want to work on. If you say “can I choose words that will satisfy my critical reviewer and also stay true to my purpose?”, then your challenge may not be flavored with resentment—and that’s worth a lot (especially if you are one of those people for whom resentment fuels procrastination).
There is a lot that can be done to shape a presentation of your ideas without sacrificing them or your integrity. Let’s set aside extreme cases where you are called upon to make a statement that directly contradicts your beliefs—if the editor at the journal wants a poem on a subject you don’t want to write about, don’t write it. If your professor wants you to say “Marx was right about everything” and you don’t agree, don’t write it. But if you’re not being forced to a direct contradiction of your beliefs, then look for the challenge of writing your own ideas in a way that will reach the difficult audience. Look for the opportunity to develop your skill as a writer and the opportunity to find a new way to express a familiar idea.
You may need to (temporarily) abandon the ways in which you have previously tried to write about your work. This can be frustrating and difficult, but it can be a great learning experience for a writer—both in terms of developing a greater discursive repertoire and skill as a writer.
Looking for new ways to communicate and old idea doesn’t change the underlying purposes, the underlying quality, or the underlying value of the work. It doesn’t stop the underlying message from being shared with others in other forms. What it does do is stretch the scholar/writer’s ability to bridge communicative and intellectual gaps.
There is a problem in trying to write in a way that reaches people with whom you have fundamental disagreements—trying to write in their language often requires adopting some of the conceptual structures that they use. This makes the exercise in trying to write across these communicative gaps quite difficult while still remaining true to your own vision. But, if you remember to think of the exercise as an exercise—an attempt to develop the ability to write/speak to disparate audiences—then these dangers are challenges to be surmounted, rather than causes to abandon your beliefs.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Feedback and Flow
I've been slowly making my way through Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
He talks about how important it is to have immediate feedback to get into the flow state (the flow state is the state of deep concentration that Csikzentmihalyi identifies as the common element in different reports of optimal experience). He talks about how the tennis player knows immediately (almost) whether the shot is in.
But does the dissertation writer have any such immediate feedback? Obviously, at one level, no: the dissertation writer depends on the professors who will ultimately sign off on the dissertation.
On another level, every writer has feedback: is there anything on the page? how much is on the page? is there anything useful on the page? Writers also have the experience of writing--are we engaged? are we focused or wandering? Those experiences themselves can tell us how we are doing.
Often I write something, or rather, I start to write something when I don't really know what I want to say and I'm just saying something for the sake of writing. Often, at such times, I am not focused and my attention is wandering; often my topic is something that I think might be interesting but don't know how to discuss. But as I expend effort to continue to engage with the writing, I begin to find greater concentration, and often I begin to find a greater sense of what I could say, and this helps me focus more: the actual process of writing helps me gain focus. Each word that I put on the page is something to reflect on, and I try to add to it, to refine it. In this way I have continual feedback that helps me focus my attention and move closer to both a coherent written form and to a sense of flow. But, though I strive for such coherence, and find it a nice challenge to see if I can manage to bring coherence into a single, completely unrevised draft, I have no expectation that I will get such coherence on the first draft. Or the second, for that matter. By the third, maybe, but...The more easily that you can write the first draft, the more time you have to revise, and the less intimidating it seems to have a revision ahead of you. If you have a day where you write very productively--you write a good ten pages, perhaps, or more,--then it's much easier to believe that you can have other such days, and so writing becomes that much less intimidating (and therefore that much easier).
In order to get your writing to generate immediate feedback, you need to write something. Let's, for a moment, just think in simple terms. If you're writing and you're struggling to write, and you write a sentence, isn't that a decent feeling? At least for a moment you can say to yourself "ah, I've written that sentence." And if you can write a whole paragraph, you can say "yes, I've written a whole paragraph," and so forth. So it's a good idea, if you're having trouble writing something, to just write anything. See how it looks on the page. See what could follow it; see how it could be built up. Put words on the page.
Sometimes I wipe away what I've written, but if you're struggling to write, you want to get words on the page. I have no trouble filling a page or three (in a blog, certainly, where it's a one-shot deal, and I won't usually even go back to clean up the typos and errors that come from changing my idea in mid-sentence), so if I wipe away a sentence or paragraph, or even page, it's no big deal. But if you're struggling, put words on the page. Give it a try. If you write a first sentence and say "that doesn't work", instead of erasing it, ask yourself, what would have to go with that sentence to remedy the error, and write that. Put words down on paper (or computer).
We have our best experiences when we're working hard, or so at least Csikzentmihalyi reports from his studies of people reporting on their optimal experiences. So how can we create a situation where we're working hard and that work becomes an optimal experience?
Csikzentmihalyi may give suggestions on how to achieve flow--I haven't finished the book--but, if flow states are characterized by concentration and by feedback, we can see that writing is a situation where those conditions apply, and it certainly takes effort. If we want to find flow in writing, the implication seems to be that we want to actually put words on the paper, because these will help us focus and will give us feedback.
Make mistakes. They give you feedback. If you make lots of mistakes, you can write several sentences in a minute. If you try to write a perfec sentence, you can wait hours with no result. Make mistakes, get feedback. Look at the words on the page and say "how do these help me write the next sentence?"
He talks about how important it is to have immediate feedback to get into the flow state (the flow state is the state of deep concentration that Csikzentmihalyi identifies as the common element in different reports of optimal experience). He talks about how the tennis player knows immediately (almost) whether the shot is in.
But does the dissertation writer have any such immediate feedback? Obviously, at one level, no: the dissertation writer depends on the professors who will ultimately sign off on the dissertation.
On another level, every writer has feedback: is there anything on the page? how much is on the page? is there anything useful on the page? Writers also have the experience of writing--are we engaged? are we focused or wandering? Those experiences themselves can tell us how we are doing.
Often I write something, or rather, I start to write something when I don't really know what I want to say and I'm just saying something for the sake of writing. Often, at such times, I am not focused and my attention is wandering; often my topic is something that I think might be interesting but don't know how to discuss. But as I expend effort to continue to engage with the writing, I begin to find greater concentration, and often I begin to find a greater sense of what I could say, and this helps me focus more: the actual process of writing helps me gain focus. Each word that I put on the page is something to reflect on, and I try to add to it, to refine it. In this way I have continual feedback that helps me focus my attention and move closer to both a coherent written form and to a sense of flow. But, though I strive for such coherence, and find it a nice challenge to see if I can manage to bring coherence into a single, completely unrevised draft, I have no expectation that I will get such coherence on the first draft. Or the second, for that matter. By the third, maybe, but...The more easily that you can write the first draft, the more time you have to revise, and the less intimidating it seems to have a revision ahead of you. If you have a day where you write very productively--you write a good ten pages, perhaps, or more,--then it's much easier to believe that you can have other such days, and so writing becomes that much less intimidating (and therefore that much easier).
In order to get your writing to generate immediate feedback, you need to write something. Let's, for a moment, just think in simple terms. If you're writing and you're struggling to write, and you write a sentence, isn't that a decent feeling? At least for a moment you can say to yourself "ah, I've written that sentence." And if you can write a whole paragraph, you can say "yes, I've written a whole paragraph," and so forth. So it's a good idea, if you're having trouble writing something, to just write anything. See how it looks on the page. See what could follow it; see how it could be built up. Put words on the page.
Sometimes I wipe away what I've written, but if you're struggling to write, you want to get words on the page. I have no trouble filling a page or three (in a blog, certainly, where it's a one-shot deal, and I won't usually even go back to clean up the typos and errors that come from changing my idea in mid-sentence), so if I wipe away a sentence or paragraph, or even page, it's no big deal. But if you're struggling, put words on the page. Give it a try. If you write a first sentence and say "that doesn't work", instead of erasing it, ask yourself, what would have to go with that sentence to remedy the error, and write that. Put words down on paper (or computer).
We have our best experiences when we're working hard, or so at least Csikzentmihalyi reports from his studies of people reporting on their optimal experiences. So how can we create a situation where we're working hard and that work becomes an optimal experience?
Csikzentmihalyi may give suggestions on how to achieve flow--I haven't finished the book--but, if flow states are characterized by concentration and by feedback, we can see that writing is a situation where those conditions apply, and it certainly takes effort. If we want to find flow in writing, the implication seems to be that we want to actually put words on the paper, because these will help us focus and will give us feedback.
Make mistakes. They give you feedback. If you make lots of mistakes, you can write several sentences in a minute. If you try to write a perfec sentence, you can wait hours with no result. Make mistakes, get feedback. Look at the words on the page and say "how do these help me write the next sentence?"
Friday, October 17, 2008
Do you have to force yourself to work?
I was talking with a writer this morning and he said to me something like "I have to force myself to work on this." This seemed to me problematic in some ways, though correct in others.
He brought up the analogy of working out: "When you're working out regularly, you don't need to force yourself because you almost have to work out; it doesn't feel right if you don't; but if you've had a lay-off and have to get back into it, it can be hard, and you do have to force yourself." This I liked much better, because it contains an important element that the first statement didn't. In this statement there is the recognition of and focus on the good that comes along with the investment of effort. And this is the key.
My yoga teacher told the class something to the effect of: "At the moment of greatest difficulty, something beautiful is waiting to be born." The idea being, I think, that it is through the difficulty that we grow into new appreciations.
I just started reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In it he says
The emphasis on "make" is his. But this is the kind of forcing that is positive: when we recognize that in the reaching and in the stretching to our limits, there we are going to be the most satisfied. So yes, we need to put in effort, and to push our comfort zone, but if that effort is motivated by our sense that this is a route to feeling good.
Yes, he notes that there may be some sort of discomfort, but that discomfort is not certain--and once in "flow" easily put aside (at least in my experience).
So, if you're thinking you have to force yourself to work, remember the optimal experiences in your past. What are the moments in your memory that stand out as the most pleasurable? Are any of them flow moments? Are they memories of things that required effort? Can remembering how good those moments felt help you engage with the project at hand?
He brought up the analogy of working out: "When you're working out regularly, you don't need to force yourself because you almost have to work out; it doesn't feel right if you don't; but if you've had a lay-off and have to get back into it, it can be hard, and you do have to force yourself." This I liked much better, because it contains an important element that the first statement didn't. In this statement there is the recognition of and focus on the good that comes along with the investment of effort. And this is the key.
My yoga teacher told the class something to the effect of: "At the moment of greatest difficulty, something beautiful is waiting to be born." The idea being, I think, that it is through the difficulty that we grow into new appreciations.
I just started reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In it he says
we have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like....
Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times--although such experiences can also be enjoyable if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen....
Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur.
The emphasis on "make" is his. But this is the kind of forcing that is positive: when we recognize that in the reaching and in the stretching to our limits, there we are going to be the most satisfied. So yes, we need to put in effort, and to push our comfort zone, but if that effort is motivated by our sense that this is a route to feeling good.
Yes, he notes that there may be some sort of discomfort, but that discomfort is not certain--and once in "flow" easily put aside (at least in my experience).
So, if you're thinking you have to force yourself to work, remember the optimal experiences in your past. What are the moments in your memory that stand out as the most pleasurable? Are any of them flow moments? Are they memories of things that required effort? Can remembering how good those moments felt help you engage with the project at hand?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Borges and I
The great Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short piece titled "Borges and I" (or, at least, that's its title in translation; Borges wrote in Spanish). I take it from the book Labyrinths, which is a collection of short pieces. The piece is in a section of the book titled "Parables."
A "parable" is often defined as a story meant to teach a simple lesson.
The parable "Borges and I," is, as I read it, largely concerned with the public persona, and the persona captured in the public eye (i.e., the "Borges" of the title) as opposed to the internally experienced life. And this part of the parable, I have some trouble connecting with, because I do not really have a public persona--at least not that is strongly reflected back at me by others; unlike Borges, people do not write about me.
But the latter part of the parable (which is all of maybe 500 words) speaks to me of a different sense--a sense of the difference between who I am today and who I was in the past.
As we write, and as we explore ideas and work on learning from them, we change and grow. As a result our perspective changes. We come to deeper understanding.
When you're trying to write a work of 100 or more pages, you have the danger that what you write at the start will not match what you write near the end due to the natural learning process that we would expect.
I often find myself looking at what I wrote in the past and wondering how to reconstruct the idea that drove me then.
A "parable" is often defined as a story meant to teach a simple lesson.
The parable "Borges and I," is, as I read it, largely concerned with the public persona, and the persona captured in the public eye (i.e., the "Borges" of the title) as opposed to the internally experienced life. And this part of the parable, I have some trouble connecting with, because I do not really have a public persona--at least not that is strongly reflected back at me by others; unlike Borges, people do not write about me.
But the latter part of the parable (which is all of maybe 500 words) speaks to me of a different sense--a sense of the difference between who I am today and who I was in the past.
I recognize myself less in [Borges's] books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things.
As we write, and as we explore ideas and work on learning from them, we change and grow. As a result our perspective changes. We come to deeper understanding.
When you're trying to write a work of 100 or more pages, you have the danger that what you write at the start will not match what you write near the end due to the natural learning process that we would expect.
I often find myself looking at what I wrote in the past and wondering how to reconstruct the idea that drove me then.
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