Uncertainty Principles
If you’re patting yourself on the back for knowing this post has something to do with the work of Werner Heisenberg, stop it!
Because it doesn’t.
Instead, it’s a response to a recently-read article (“Your Mind Needs Chaos”) that confirmed something I’ve suspected for years: Uncertainty is the driving force of creativity. Anecdotal evidence is, of course, not real evidence, no matter how convincing it may feel to us. Still, it’s reassuring when some external source reinforces our gut instincts.
The second of these excerpts (below) from The Digressions of Dr Sanscravat: Gastronomical Ramblings & Other Diversions (“Why, and How, to Write”) is the bit I like to think confirms my beliefs. On the other hand, I might just have given the article a Procrustean stretch to serve my own purposes. The New York Times might have, as its motto, “All the news that’s fit to print,” but—like my rôle model (Procrustes*)—I’m willing make the facts fit.
* If Procrustes’ name seems unfamiliar, Wikipedia will be happy to put your uncertainty to bed. If you don’t need Wikipedia, now is the time to pat yourself on the back.
On Happiness
I never really got into painting and drawing food, but that’s probably because I lacked the technical facility to make the result appear really appetizing. I may not be able to do so with writing, either—but I lack the literary taste to notice the failure.
One can only be truly happy when one’s tastes do not exceed one’s talents.
Why, and How, to Write
I used to have an encyclopedic memory. I could easily recite anything I’d ever read, even decades afterwards. It didn’t matter what it was… books, magazines, ingredient lists on cereal boxes. I could spout, in order, the nineteen ingredients that once were found in Worchestershire Sauce.
Then, about twenty years ago, I noticed that something was changing. That sauce from Lea & Perrins only had seven or so components—until I looked at the bottle, and saw the entire list. My memory was beginning its inevitable decline. Surreptitious withdrawals from my memory’s bank accounts were signaling the approach of future insolvency.
I decided that, while I was still able-minded, I should write down some of the things I knew. After all, I might need them someday.
While I found the writing process enjoyable, something else unexpectedly happened along the way. I assumed that I already knew everything I needed (egotistical immaturity, clearly, does not fade away with advancing years) but, in committing it to paper, I found that I needed to do a little research—to fill in a few missing details. Those “few missing details” grew in number until they far outweighed the paltry knowledge I had brought to the table.
Doing research was even more fun than writing.
In school, English teachers always advised us to “write what we know.” In retrospect, that seems pretty foolish, since what little we knew at the time was unlikely to lead to anything worth reading. Sitting at the other end of the age spectrum, I realize that—with an ever-decreasing balance in the “what I know” account—my teachers’ advice was even more useless.
Instead of that hoary old advice, substitute this: “Write what you don’t know… yet.” Any writing (fiction and non-, poetry, drama, essays, even memoir) should always be an exploration, an expedition into previously unknown lands, a wandering—even through familiar places—with eyes newly wide open, so that we, and our readers, get to see the previously unseen.
Writing as Mnemonic Tool
It is an amazing process.
Little shreds of inconsequential memory, when examined with purpose, can unfold—layer after layer of otherwise invisible stuff appears and assembles itself into structures that were unimaginable before we started writing. Back in the days when I used to hunt and fish, I noticed that nature was populated much more intensely when I was carrying a gun or rod. The paraphernalia (like the word processor) act as antennae for experience.
The signals are all around us, but the radio has to be turned on to hear them.
On Correspondence
Letter-writing is great therapy. I used to think that writing irate letters for people (to the motor vehicle bureau, flaky merchants, insurance companies, the IRS, etc.) would be great occupation. “This spleen for hire” sorta’ thing. Basically, it’s what lawyers do, but they omit the fun. I don’t think I could actually have done it, any more than I could have become a chef.
Fundamentally, I have resisted turning my pleasure into work. It’s the flip side of J. P Donleavey’s definition of novel writing: “the process of turning one’s worst moments into money.”
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