Writing to change the world

Credit Brandi on the post title.  I was just reading her blog, of the same name.

In my Introduction to Theological Reflection class, we were given a semester-long assignment, called a "focal practice."  First, we were to write a short "This I Believe" essay, then create a focal practice around that belief and write ten journal entries documenting our experience with the practice.

I wrote that I believe "God is in the silence."  I talked about my desire--longing, really--for space and silence.  These are things I never get, because when I'm not frantically trying to finish an assignment I started after most of my classmates had finished, I'm murdering time by playing stupid online games or watching the latest episodes of my favorite TV shows on Hulu.

As for a focal practice, I don't have one.  I wrote about various things I did--attempts to cook, bike rides to school--things that make my life better, but that are not necessarily related in any focal sense.  Then, today, while doing a shift at Bethany's front desk, I got overwhelmed with a desire to write.  So I wrote the following:

I give myself "no credit" on this assignment.

I have failed to create any kind of focal practice. My writing here is reflective of a general theme in my life, which is a vague desire to be better in some way, accompanied by nothing more than fragmented half-attempts at doing something. So I tried to make broiled whitefish once. So I put together an altar. So I've been running. Sure, all of these things connect in my crazy post-modernist understanding of life and meaning and everything, but they aren't focal. And I'm not focused.

I face the same problem with writing. I'm a writer, kind of, except I don't write. And when I do, I don't write enough. I don't write enough to break out of the forced text and cliche and into something that will actually bring meaning to my own life, let alone to other peoples' lives. In writing, I start a new project wanting to name some kind of profundity, but then the ADHD sets in and I find myself entirely incapable of narrowing my vague creative desires down into something with focus.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a guide to making a tape-less, staple-less booklet by cutting and folding paper. So I took some scraps of paper, put them together, and wrote "confessions" on the front. And I started to write.

Of course, this project is yet another one that has no focus. No boundaries. It's not "confessions" in the sense of "forgive me, father, for I have sinned." It's a confessional. I want to say, "This is who I am. This is what I think. This is what I'm going through." And, you know, it doesn't really have to have focus. Because it's just for me. It's just a little notebook where I can scribble some things down.

So I wrote about my lack of focus. My struggles with a learning disability. My recent separation from my partner of over a year. My theology of appeasement. My inability to follow through on anything, ever. Maybe when I'm done I'll tear it up. Maybe I'll put it in a box to read when I'm fifty. But at least I'm making something.

Maybe I'm not a writer in action--at least not as much as I should be--but I am a writer in belief. I believe that through writing I can mold the disjointed events of my life into a story. I can create meaning where none was inherent. I can process the things that whiz by me when I'm too distracted to stop and deal with anything.

I think writing changes the world, but not by being famous, unless you're Karl Marx or something. Writing changes the world by providing a lens I need to experience the world. It's a change of interpretation.

Maybe this post has nothing to do with the guidelines of this focal practice assignment. But I felt like writing it.

Theories on life, the universe, and everything

I'm actually not at all a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy."  But it is a good phrase.

I just saw this blog post passing along a brief lesson in life from Kurt Vonnegut.

I used to--and, to some extent, still do--seek the sort of life that would make a good movie.  Walking home from high school on a rainy night, after staying late to work on newspaper layout, I'd think how good my surroundings would be for some melodramatic montage, and I'd imagine the minor-key piano music and whining vocals that would accompany such a scene.

We all do this.  (By "we all," I mean "most of us, I think.")  We expect life to reflect entertainment.  After all, entertainment reflects life, right?  But entertainment reflects only the dramatic (and, at its best, the profound) in life.  It's a skewed look that uses semi-realistic people, relationships, events and themes to create unrealistic patterns and meanings.  We see this, and we expect our life to weave itself into natural plot lines; we expect people to exhibit the consistency and predictability of a well-developed character.

But people are not consistent, and life has meaning and story only through interpretation.  Out of this cognitive dissonance, we create the drama we expect to see.

Vonnegut:  "[B]ecause we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs.  So people pretend there is drama where there is none."

The blog author continues: "That's why people invent fights.  That's why we're drawn to sports.  That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.  We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale."