I have always dreamed of writing a novel. Fiction - no doubt. Ideally something that makes a little money… that was my first answer this morning. But after admitting that I think, really? Is that the reason? Money? You can make money selling dried meat. A passionless pursuit in pursuit of the dollar. I don’t think it’s the only reason, it would be nice. Thinking a bit further perhaps it might actually be about capturing something. Like a Pokemon. Kind of. I mean, if you think about it, this body has captured consciousness. Ripped it out of the void by shaping a container for the lightness of being. Consciousness itself doesn’t really care about that. Likely, in its purest form, it’s just here. Not happy or sad to be so. Likely all those things which seem like suffering are habituates. The filters through which consciousness has been conditioned to react to stimuli strengthened here or there resulting in product: suffering and bliss. Greatness, glory, destitution and devastation, all constructs, some collective some not, but all common. There is self there as well, though. Who I am, who we are. Although inherently empty, we have still taken on a shape, a vehicle with which to explore the universe.
Circling back to the topic of writing, I don’t think, like the Buddhists, that the point of existence is to return to that middle state. Instead, writing gives me the chance to tell the under story. But I ask you, James, “what the fuck is the Understory?”. To which I’d reply, it is the latent interaction of subconscious forces beneath every narrative which constitute the push and pull of human signatures. The form of humanity, as I understand it, is variable, I don’t think any of us possess the malleability to express it all. But in every story these forces are at play. They are what makes stories intelligible to us. I as a writer seek to express such. And yet, sitting here - I don’t think it’s the only reason, it would be nice.
On another account, perhaps I write simply because I like myself. I want to hold a conversation with him that has come to sit here with me. Though I don’t know where he’s from or where he’s going, I’d like to have a good time as I sit here. Or maybe, just not a bad time. I suppose writing is a way to connect and converse with that boy. He judges me from the bottom of the river, I know that. And I can’t say he doesn’t have any power or reason to do so. It hurts, badly. Like getting punched in the heart. Walking around blue and black. It resonated yesterday, when I found him finally. I sort of knew where he went, thought I shut myself away when they took him from me. No, when they took him away. I do feel like, aside from all the obvious things that he represents, he is also necessary to my survival. An undeniable structural component of my self. Unkillable, apparently, but not invincible.
And as I sit here it dawns on me - the reason I write, is because it’s good for me. For me, not humanity. I can’t say what’s good for all of us in our varying shapes, I won’t go so far as to comment on such. But at least for this guy, however it might work, whether it be to express the understory, for coin or for a good conversation, I am completely convinced that writing is healthy for me. I think I stopped because I got into the habit of thinking that writing had to be inspired all the time. Like capturing fireflies or the song of the muse. That somehow they would cook in cerebral corners of my consciousness, to the write temperature, walk themselves onto a plate, and present themselves to me. I realize now how preposterous that was to think.
I’m not mad at myself, I am, in fact, trying to get into a habit of tenderness. But all these crashing waves of good intentions has, in addition to breaking my expectations, brought me back to basics, so to speak. I can’t unwrite the story thus far, I can’t rip out the pages and pick up where I want to. But we’re still here. That boy can still be found - be brought up from the depths. Life still beats in his heart and eagles still live in his eyes. So I come with fire to the shore today. A small flame in a land hostile to all species of warmth. Somewhere on these shores of woe I will sit and wait, like I know I should.
