If we fake it, our readers will know it. We will know it. The plot or argument won’t hold together. When it’s truthful to us, it will engage others.
And it will feel “right” inside us. We don’t merely know a truth intellectually—we feel it. A word of beauty is a path for feeling to follow, or it reveals the path feeling took to get to meaning. Without feeling, words are empty code. Dead. When a sentence feels off or incomplete or its struggling for breath, it’s wrong, no matter how attractive it looks. We shouldn’t get distracted by good looks. It’s the heart that counts.
And in this frightful time, when fear is being manipulated to drive a wedge between us and others, and with ourselves, our world. Truth is not just buried but twisted by lies. Uncovering what the truth is, and being able to face what we feel, is now an act of defiance and resistance to DT’s march to dictatorship. Looking at ourselves might at times feel too fearsome to attempt, but never has it been more necessary. Our future depends on us finding the right moments to look within and motivate ourselves to join with others to act for the greater good of all.
Feelings arise before words and memories do. They arise with the first hint of awareness. We’ve all probably experienced not knowing what we want to say or write until we say it, or put something down on paper, or in our computer. The act of writing, putting something in front of our eyes, and listening to the words in our mind as we write or say them, can open the conscious mind to the depths normally unconscious. It’s creating and thinking. It’s revelation. What I’m saying is obviously not new. Writing can be an art and an ancient form of therapy.
So, the first step in writing and creating is awakening an awareness of feeling. We all have our own times or ways to feel some clarity, feel a pathway to creativity. Mine involves meditating, exercising and reading, or writing first thing in the morning when my mind is clear. Meditation clears my mind and increases awareness and focus. Exercise energizes me and clears away blocks and obsessions. Walking in natural settings is amazing. And reading nonfiction that interests me can provide a stimulus, imagery, insights, and intellectual challenges. Sometimes, what sparks our creativity is feeling an inner response to what someone else says or has done.
And then, letting go. Free associating. No editing. Just clearly watching what arises and listening to the winds in ourselves and out in the surrounding world and honestly recording whatever we see or hear.
The philosopher, psychologist, and writer Dr. Jean Huston said in a workshop I attended that immersing ourselves in poetry makes beauty more readily available to us. Beauty will then percolate through the unconscious and emerge in one’s speech and writing. The same with reading stories, psychology, philosophy, history and such. Reading reveals doors which meditation unlocks.
One meditation asks us to focus attention on the tip of the nose and count our breaths. This develops focused attention. Then we allow ourselves to be peripherally aware of what’s going on inside and all around us as we breathe. Or we just listen to the quiet, to a bird call, to the way the world whispers and speaks. Or feeling our feet on the floor, our body in space.
The directions for meditation and mindfulness might sound simple. It is the mind which adds the complexities. Whatever comes up when we meditate, we remember to be kind to ourselves. Or just be kind all the time. Notice what’s there inside and return to the breath, or to a general awareness of our state of mind. No internal commenting is necessary. Just notice the arising or the whisper of feeling or thought. Then let it dissipate and return attention to the counting and the feel of air passing in and out.
The meditation develops a sense of presence that is inherently creative and curious. Understanding how the world influences and shapes us will then come more deeply and maybe quickly. If we look at our ideas or writing while in this state, we more readily notice what feels right or off, or incomplete.
Another wonderful practice is proprioceptive writing, created by Linda Trichter Metcalf and Tobin Simon. It is a “method for finding our authentic voice,” and hearing our personal truth. We write whatever arises, whatever we hear inside. If we get lost or confused, we write down the confusion. We “write what you hear. Hear what you write.” Don’t edit. Just let ourselves go free. Edit later. Write until what we hear feels real, honest, exciting, and large enough to do justice to the topic.
Think of writing as a process. We write what seems truthful now, so later, we will more clearly notice what’s true then. We write and then take a break. We “sleep on it.” Take a walk. Then take a fresh look. Often, we realize later that what we had thought or written once was not the truth or not the best expression of what we felt. But if we hadn’t written what we had, hadn’t tried our best to be truthful then, we wouldn’t have this insight now. A bit of humility, and letting go of self-judgment, go a long way to revealing the clarity we need so deeply now.
So, this process of writing is what’s most important. Not even what we get in the future from what we do now, but our moment-by-moment experience. If we focus mostly on the result, on what we imagine the future will bring, we lose perspective; we force it. We lose contact with the worlds of meaning living in the words in front of us, and with the greater reality that feeds us and our creativity. We love the process itself. To love the process is to turn our whole life into a creative act. It is to value each moment.
What a beautiful way to live.
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**A version of this blog was also published by the Swenson Book Development website, and my website:
https://irarabois.com/write-well-write-truthfully/
http://www.integralscience.org/whiteheadbuddhism.html
https://www.openhorizons.org/process-zen-being-present-in-the-moment.html
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
