What to write?
What to write when you don’t know how to write, but wish to write?
Write anything that comes to you.
Like the music of your innards,
Like the organ of your organs,
The church organ which plays the sounds of your heart and your religion,
Harmoniously with your heart strings
And the strands of DNA, which play like a guitar,
Unravelling and playing the song of your ancestors,
Of the history of life which is embedded in every fiber of your being.
This is a poem I had written a few months ago, April 23rd, 2021, to be exact, a writing exercise of sorts for my creative writing class. If I recall correctly, we we’re instructed to write whatever came to mind, an jot it down in our note book, this being a warm up exercise for the more complex writing we would be doing throughout the rest of the class. I pondered this question, “what to write when you don’t know what to write, but wish to write”. This seems like an odd question to some, but to me, it seemed quite daunting, or of deep yearning, an answer had to be achieved. How do writers surmise the subjects or concepts of their writing, this is a strangely ungraspable thing for me. But at this time, the answer seemed quite evident, quite clearly in front of me, for as I was writing the words would flow through me like a river that had been opened, a pool of water was unlocked and I felt to be in a receptive enough state to channel this into my writing. So at the time, my answer was, as the poem suggested, to write whatever came to mind, this seemed to be synonymous to a flow state which I had been experiencing. A sort of relaxed, and trustful surrendering to the writing process, which invoked, what I have conceived, to be a sort of power source, or perhaps my antenna had been adjusted to receive these ideas which just seemed to be popping up, coming through me from a distant place, which was also quite personal to my being. It was, how to say this, like I had discovered a way to write without thinking, yet the writing I was producing was marvelous, well to me at least. It was an incredible feeling, I would often just sit, listen to music, mostly piano, or perhaps a genre of music called lofi, and vibe to the sounds, as I allowed these, perhaps, subconscious ideas to express themselves through my fingers and into writing. The music would strike a chord in me, almost mingling with my soul, drawing it out of it’s cave, and demanding that it writes something as majestic and riveting as music can be. For this is the skill, the magical ability of the artist, the truly skilled artist, navigates in and out of the obscure caverns of the human psyche in order to extract the most avoided, suppressed, and longed for human desires, and articulates them, crystalizing them into an artful form, so that the observer can see the work of art and feel that emotion coming out of him or her. In a way the artist is a magician, a shaman perhaps, calling out to those aspects of the human condition that may have been pushed to the side due to the desire for perfection, or a pretentious demonstration of virtuous behavior. The artist, the truly daring, the courageous few that dare to pass the line, the tight fisted need, and longing to be in control. The artist, the truly destined artist, perhaps because it is predetermined in a mysterious, and incomprehensible way, feels compelled to venture into this unknown, yet alluring entrance into what we can call, a sort of limbo, the space between, wherein one can acquire, and bring over the mysterious ideas which lay on the other sides. The unconscious field of collective humanity, they will unearth this, and bring it to light through a skillful manipulation of their craft of choice. This perhaps overly fanciful explanation was to give a glimpse into what perhaps “I” had discovered within me as I was writing. Of course my logical mind is full of doubt, how can such a thing which I cannot fit into my little box of logical scrutiny exist, well perhaps this is faith, to shift this paradigm, wherein one embraces life’s mystery and navigates a long it’s fine thread. This passageway to the divine I’ll call it, was discovered in my writing, and I felt enlightened by this practice, of listening to music as I was writing. Releasing what was entangled, and feeling this inspiration pulsating through me. As with all things of life that inevitably die away, this spark which I felt so strongly, was dimming, and so I felt myself to be quite saddened, and yearning for this feeling again, I attempted to recreate a similar practice, but this recreation seemed not to work, I would feel stunted by something, I would be brought to a halt, as there was a closed door, which I could not venture through yet, perhaps I am unprepared, but I’m daring to face the door, and plunge into it’s depth now.
