Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Letter 4
Bill,
I am glad that my letters find you in good spirits and that you do not find the back-and-forth off-putting. Writing is a funny thing. You can never anticipate the impact on the reader or the writer. For my own self, I find it both liberating and embarrassing*. I think I've found that one of the primary reasons behind my constant writer's block is that I'm too afraid to embarrass myself, either in the view of myself or in the view of others. I suppose that, at it's root, this problem has a positive side in that it shows me that I've always considered writing to be an act of honesty. Indeed, when I've been unable to be honest with myself and others is when I've struggled the most. Of course, it's not purely by foolishness that I unlearned honesty; after all, it would be poor form (I'm assuming) if I were to answer most of the technical questions put to me during the course of the workday with "I don't give a shit."
In fact, and I apologize for the digression, it seems to me that there are many areas on life in which we are discouraged from being honest. In school, up through AP courses in high school, we are expected to keep our answers in line with what we have been taught is the teachers' and schools' expectations. In courting and relationships, in both high school and through adult life, success is often marked by how well one is able to blend fiction and non-fiction, all in the name of shaping one's conversation in a way that does not accidentally or deliberately cause pain to the woman you love (this is especially true if you are only trying to love in a physical way).
To return to the flow of the previous paragraph - perhaps it is because of the fact that I've not been honest with myself or others for a long time about what I want in my career... no, that's window dressing, or perhaps salad dressing. It really goes back to my family, I think, in that the members of my family are rarely open with each other, at least as far as the big, heavy matters that pass between us over the long course of mind, calling into mind cargo ships that pass heavy freight between them as they sail around the world, following the sun, until one by one they sail into the horizon, ultimately alone but hopefully remembered and integrated into the spirits of the others.
In any case, while a lark, these letters are freighted with the need for honesty. Oh, damn, I'm doing it again. Emotions! Oh dear, dear, dear.
I'm nearing the end of the Faulkner biography, by the way. It's truly been a fantastic learning and reading experience. I highly recommend that you read it - I remember you often mentioning your love of Faulkner. Something which, now that I think about it, I can see in the memories I have of your creative writing going back through college. In that context, I think you'd enjoy the book even more than I. I'm rather sad to report that Faulkner's death wasn't very spectacular. Given his prodigious appetites for whiskey and young women, I'd rather hoped that he would die from a fall from a horse upon which Faulkner was committing carnal acts upon a young student from the University of Virginia. But, alas, he died in a hospital bed after a sickness, the effect of alcohol more like a creek (or a roaring river, in Faulkner's case) wearing down a rock rather than something more explosive like Dylan Thomas' death.
All the best,
Lionel
* Though not as embarrassing as how many spelling mistakes I make and that this blogging software catches; I spelled "writer" as "rider," for God's sake! I should be drawn and quartered by tractors in the fields of Vermont.
**********
Leo,
As far as the poor spelling goes, perhaps you are a victim of the auto-correct in the blog's software, wherein a slight misspelling is recast into a horrid misspelling because the software decides it is closer to one word rather than another. It's not as apocalyptic as most horrors visited upon humanity by technology, but neither one of us is living a particularly apocalyptic or vivid life.
For example, my big goal over the past weekend was figuring out how to remove rather embedded poop stains in my son's jeans. It was my own fault - he shat himself a number of times several weeks ago and each time I put the jeans in the wash pile so that they could be properly cleaned. However, for reasons I still can't fathom, I was putting them in the wrong place. I don't know why. My wife and I have a single place in the house where we put things that need to be washed - oftentimes there's a hamper to hold the clothes, but sometimes if a load of laundry is already being run,the hamper won't be there. So it didn't occur to me that there was a problem when, over the course of the week, these shitty clothes were piling up and there was no hamper anywhere. Finally, notified by the stench of unwashed poop, Mary (heatedly, to the point where I still feel a slow burn) pointed out to me that I'd been putting the shitted jeans in a completely random place, far away from the usual place. I still don't know why or how I made such a mistake. I was putting the jeans in not only the wrong corner of the room, but also the wrong room. And now I've been spending my time doing online research about how to get these shit stains out without bleaching. The worst thing about it, now that the stench has been washed away (I ran the clothes through the machines once which got rid of the smell, but not the stains), is that these are new jeans. Childrens' clothes are incredibly expensive. It is the downfall of Western civilization, I swear to you. Either you spend all your discretionary income on clothes your child will grow out of in two or three months, or all the parents at the daycare center look at you like you're an abuser because your child is wearing cheap and/or secondhand clothes. It's horrid. Never have children. Run away, run far away. Join a monastery. Specifically, a monastery where they allow internet porn. I mean, the bastards are having a horrible time recruiting - they must be lowering their standards.
Have you ever considered when you might want to settle down and have children? I know you're rather averse to the concept. And the experience isn't great for everyone. I've been very lucky. But I really think that it would be good for you, especially given that you perceive many of your problems as stemming from your family, specifically how your family makes you feel about yourself. So why not start up a new family? That's simplified, but it's true as well. You can redefine yourself this way, you really can. Words can't describe how different it is. It's like waking up one day and realizing that the sun (pun intended) is a living, breathing entity. It's still the same sun that you've always known, but there's a whole new dimension that you've never seen before and now the world as you know it is completely redefined. You don't truly understand the power of life and family until you have children. Or maybe I'm proselytizing. I am happy, very happy, with my own situation, and I think that children would make you happy as well, but I realize that you're probably feeling enough pressure as is, being a bachelor at the age of 35. I can't decide if you're impervious to societal pressure or if you're highly sensitive but also highly contrary and stubborn. Probably the latter.
As far as writing goes, yes, having children (or even just one child) makes it much, much harder to dedicate any real time to writing, and I know how important writing is to you. And in that context, your growth as a writer will slow. But in the context of becoming more honest, and growing as a writer in that manner, I think that starting a family would be a welcome new stage in your life.
In regards to your implied-but-not-articulated concerns about being too open and honest in these letters, don't worry about it. I may not always like it but, ultimately, it's up to you. You obviously have a sense for how I feel about these things so I trust you to not go too far. And ultimately, you are going to have to be more open if you want to grow as a writer. Don't be afraid to face up to it.
Yours in a most Victorian way,
Bill
I am glad that my letters find you in good spirits and that you do not find the back-and-forth off-putting. Writing is a funny thing. You can never anticipate the impact on the reader or the writer. For my own self, I find it both liberating and embarrassing*. I think I've found that one of the primary reasons behind my constant writer's block is that I'm too afraid to embarrass myself, either in the view of myself or in the view of others. I suppose that, at it's root, this problem has a positive side in that it shows me that I've always considered writing to be an act of honesty. Indeed, when I've been unable to be honest with myself and others is when I've struggled the most. Of course, it's not purely by foolishness that I unlearned honesty; after all, it would be poor form (I'm assuming) if I were to answer most of the technical questions put to me during the course of the workday with "I don't give a shit."
In fact, and I apologize for the digression, it seems to me that there are many areas on life in which we are discouraged from being honest. In school, up through AP courses in high school, we are expected to keep our answers in line with what we have been taught is the teachers' and schools' expectations. In courting and relationships, in both high school and through adult life, success is often marked by how well one is able to blend fiction and non-fiction, all in the name of shaping one's conversation in a way that does not accidentally or deliberately cause pain to the woman you love (this is especially true if you are only trying to love in a physical way).
To return to the flow of the previous paragraph - perhaps it is because of the fact that I've not been honest with myself or others for a long time about what I want in my career... no, that's window dressing, or perhaps salad dressing. It really goes back to my family, I think, in that the members of my family are rarely open with each other, at least as far as the big, heavy matters that pass between us over the long course of mind, calling into mind cargo ships that pass heavy freight between them as they sail around the world, following the sun, until one by one they sail into the horizon, ultimately alone but hopefully remembered and integrated into the spirits of the others.
In any case, while a lark, these letters are freighted with the need for honesty. Oh, damn, I'm doing it again. Emotions! Oh dear, dear, dear.
I'm nearing the end of the Faulkner biography, by the way. It's truly been a fantastic learning and reading experience. I highly recommend that you read it - I remember you often mentioning your love of Faulkner. Something which, now that I think about it, I can see in the memories I have of your creative writing going back through college. In that context, I think you'd enjoy the book even more than I. I'm rather sad to report that Faulkner's death wasn't very spectacular. Given his prodigious appetites for whiskey and young women, I'd rather hoped that he would die from a fall from a horse upon which Faulkner was committing carnal acts upon a young student from the University of Virginia. But, alas, he died in a hospital bed after a sickness, the effect of alcohol more like a creek (or a roaring river, in Faulkner's case) wearing down a rock rather than something more explosive like Dylan Thomas' death.
All the best,
Lionel
* Though not as embarrassing as how many spelling mistakes I make and that this blogging software catches; I spelled "writer" as "rider," for God's sake! I should be drawn and quartered by tractors in the fields of Vermont.
**********
Leo,
As far as the poor spelling goes, perhaps you are a victim of the auto-correct in the blog's software, wherein a slight misspelling is recast into a horrid misspelling because the software decides it is closer to one word rather than another. It's not as apocalyptic as most horrors visited upon humanity by technology, but neither one of us is living a particularly apocalyptic or vivid life.
For example, my big goal over the past weekend was figuring out how to remove rather embedded poop stains in my son's jeans. It was my own fault - he shat himself a number of times several weeks ago and each time I put the jeans in the wash pile so that they could be properly cleaned. However, for reasons I still can't fathom, I was putting them in the wrong place. I don't know why. My wife and I have a single place in the house where we put things that need to be washed - oftentimes there's a hamper to hold the clothes, but sometimes if a load of laundry is already being run,the hamper won't be there. So it didn't occur to me that there was a problem when, over the course of the week, these shitty clothes were piling up and there was no hamper anywhere. Finally, notified by the stench of unwashed poop, Mary (heatedly, to the point where I still feel a slow burn) pointed out to me that I'd been putting the shitted jeans in a completely random place, far away from the usual place. I still don't know why or how I made such a mistake. I was putting the jeans in not only the wrong corner of the room, but also the wrong room. And now I've been spending my time doing online research about how to get these shit stains out without bleaching. The worst thing about it, now that the stench has been washed away (I ran the clothes through the machines once which got rid of the smell, but not the stains), is that these are new jeans. Childrens' clothes are incredibly expensive. It is the downfall of Western civilization, I swear to you. Either you spend all your discretionary income on clothes your child will grow out of in two or three months, or all the parents at the daycare center look at you like you're an abuser because your child is wearing cheap and/or secondhand clothes. It's horrid. Never have children. Run away, run far away. Join a monastery. Specifically, a monastery where they allow internet porn. I mean, the bastards are having a horrible time recruiting - they must be lowering their standards.
Have you ever considered when you might want to settle down and have children? I know you're rather averse to the concept. And the experience isn't great for everyone. I've been very lucky. But I really think that it would be good for you, especially given that you perceive many of your problems as stemming from your family, specifically how your family makes you feel about yourself. So why not start up a new family? That's simplified, but it's true as well. You can redefine yourself this way, you really can. Words can't describe how different it is. It's like waking up one day and realizing that the sun (pun intended) is a living, breathing entity. It's still the same sun that you've always known, but there's a whole new dimension that you've never seen before and now the world as you know it is completely redefined. You don't truly understand the power of life and family until you have children. Or maybe I'm proselytizing. I am happy, very happy, with my own situation, and I think that children would make you happy as well, but I realize that you're probably feeling enough pressure as is, being a bachelor at the age of 35. I can't decide if you're impervious to societal pressure or if you're highly sensitive but also highly contrary and stubborn. Probably the latter.
As far as writing goes, yes, having children (or even just one child) makes it much, much harder to dedicate any real time to writing, and I know how important writing is to you. And in that context, your growth as a writer will slow. But in the context of becoming more honest, and growing as a writer in that manner, I think that starting a family would be a welcome new stage in your life.
In regards to your implied-but-not-articulated concerns about being too open and honest in these letters, don't worry about it. I may not always like it but, ultimately, it's up to you. You obviously have a sense for how I feel about these things so I trust you to not go too far. And ultimately, you are going to have to be more open if you want to grow as a writer. Don't be afraid to face up to it.
Yours in a most Victorian way,
Bill
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