My Brain
…doesn’t work like other people’s brains.
My brain works like my brain, and this tends to mean that when I’m without ideas I don’t write. The two issues with this are (a), inspiration shouldn’t be the reason to write, just the occasional genius that populates writing and (b), it tends to mean that I’m lacking input.
Narrative.
Since a young age, my brain has been narratively driven in the way that…well, I assume most people’s are (we all enjoy stories) – so as to applaud extensive cohesion and the development of ideas.
Yet I think my brain requires narrative in extraordinary quantities. It wants to gorge on them, chew them and taste the best bits, the worst bits and process the whole. Not to produce inspiration, but to produce more appreciation of words, language and my own understanding of the work I enjoy so much.
Gao Xingjian, the Chinese novelist, playwright, critic, translator, screenwriter, director, painter (read as: ‘work ethic guru’) has said:
Writing eases my suffering…writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence
…and I get that. Not so much the first bit, but certainly the last. Writing is my life’s work, and I’m now realising that writing is dependent on reading. On listening. On the input of words into my narrative combustion engine. No input = no output, and no output means no writing. No blog posts. No anything.
I’m trying to address that. Not only have I signed up to Lovefilm to plug the visual arts sinkhole, but I’m taking and making time to read more. First up are the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I read them before at university, but never really paid much attention. Couldn’t have done, else I’d have been as inspired going into Am. Lit seminars as I was when I got off the train today. Superb. Check him out if you’re at a loose end.
And that’s that. I only wanted to type something here just to keep people updated on me. This being a blog of sorts and all. To writing. To narrative. And to input.
Til next time.
