“If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays. I would make decisions.” ― Montaigne
There is something of the coward’s hesitation in sitting down to write that can never quite be removed. The writing moment is an extension of the conscious moment, a breakdown of man’s place within the world. Writing may clarify a man for action and return him to the world, or itself become a kind of fetish, a bad habit, a secure retreat from the world of men and activity.
He who writes feels more productive than he who simply sits. But it is mostly a false comfort, because for whom does the writer write? His audience is those who sit to read. And his writing, if he chooses to publish, encourages other men to sit.
Writing, to be productive, must itself result from some conflict regarding an action, return the writer to action, and just as importantly bring any reader to action. While good writing returns both author and reader to the world of decision, bad writing creates a lasting world of its own for a reader, giving him pleasure and comfort to remain within it. He lives in the musty quiet of libraries, or under the protection of universities, and any writing he may do will be no more than a derivative, secondary literature on that which was already written.
There is something of the coward’s hesitation in sitting down to write that can never quite be removed. The writing moment is an extension of the conscious moment, a breakdown of man’s place within the world. Writing may clarify a man for action and return him to the world, or itself become a kind of fetish, a bad habit, a secure retreat from the world of men and activity.
He who writes feels more productive than he who simply sits. But it is mostly a false comfort, because for whom does the writer write? His audience is those who sit to read. And his writing, if he chooses to publish, encourages other men to sit.
Writing, to be productive, must itself result from some conflict regarding an action, return the writer to action, and just as importantly bring any reader to action. While good writing returns both author and reader to the world of decision, bad writing creates a lasting world of its own for a reader, giving him pleasure and comfort to remain within it. He lives in the musty quiet of libraries, or under the protection of universities, and any writing he may do will be no more than a derivative, secondary literature on that which was already written.
"most of the time when I write, I am sweating all over the keys"
ReplyDelete~Anonymous commenter
Yes, this is spot fucking on. Your writing will be an offensive shock to the wastoid culture of 20-something 'reader-writers' who opine about 'secondary literature' about 'primary literature' from 'writers' they would never have befriended. Fritz would have been alone. Ernie too. It's only when Ernie drank that he could have had friends. You have to drink, sit at a table with two 25 year girls, and then wander the night with them--oh gatekeepers of society these women are. The action of being in the lone mountains in a lone tribe or crossing a desert in 60 mile an hour wind, stopping for but a sip of water--these things are done alone, but the power it gives to your writing is stunning. We highly regard and commend your work. I hope I live to see your results. I hope you live too of course.
ReplyDeleteWriting may compel men to stand and then run off and risk life to see new things.
ReplyDeleteFor example, your work on South America compelled me to trade my life of sitting--but for two weeks--for a life of bicycle riding. It was a very special transformation of the spirit. The soft tan flesh of Colombian women.
ReplyDelete