Thanks, now go away

            “Just write something,” Tim proclaimed.  This profound bit of advice was all he could offer to my disarray.  I was tempted to respond with the expected dismissiveness, but I realized he actually thought that was useful.  Like I’d never just sat down and wrote.

            Maybe he was right.  Nonetheless, it was dumb advice.  Like telling a cancer patient to “quit being sick” or a depressed person to “just cheer up.”  And yet, people continue to offer this sort of advice to one another, not for the sake of actually solving problems, but to just cap it off and move on to some other, less esoteric topic.  One cannot just pull art out of oneself as a dentist extracts a molar.  There has to be some goal, some truth, which compels it to leave the infinite interior of the soul and onto the language-restricted lines of the page.

            Why do that to a message?  The English language may be vast, but compared to infinity it’s just chicken scratch.  Lest you imagine this is an excuse in the making for not writing anything at all, I consider it an amusing challenge to take the universe and stuff it into a pocket.  And for writing’s sake alone, it can remain in my files forever untouched, or tossed into the trash, and the universe continues to unfold without a flinch.  A slant is placed on the product, however, when one writes for the sake of others.  When I write to entertain, do I approach with my own unfiltered voice, or with an approach I imagine appeals to a wider audience?  Is writing for others as much of a compromise as it is to write anything at all with the limits of language?

            We may read the biographies and writing tips from published, respected authors.  We hear them break down their methods, we hear their tips about going from a blank page to a best seller list placement.  They must know better than us, right?  Well, they have at least reached their goals and perhaps sit in a better place to advise than ourselves.  What seems consistent among them all is to read more.  And to write, always.

            So, Tim’s advice, coming from a non-writer, is both frustrating and correct.  And instead of writing, I spend most of that time just mentally listing all the reasons I can’t write.  I get all kinds of household chores done that I didn’t want to touch otherwise.  I get lots of television watching in.  Curiously, I find the time to advise my writer friend to “just write”.

            The years I spent feeling very inferior to my own life experience like to butt in, and while I appreciate their motive – to keep me from failing at my writing attempt – I have to thank them for accompanying me on the journey… and to leave, for good.  I no longer require their misguided protection.