Writing

Something Else; Someone Else

Sometimes it is difficult to write because there is something else that needs to be written, something more urgent, more pressing, more alive, and more real. A desire for being expressed, a desire for being written, is a quality of some experiences. Perhaps by giving expression to something that isn’t charged with that desire, we are reminded of the desire and its possible aims. Perhaps this is why writing can be discomforting, because it could lead to finding a misalignment between what is being written and what desires to be written. The act of writing could remind us, or at least give us an inkling about, something else we ought to be writing about.

Leaning toward a more pressing desire is not just about leaning in the direction of a particular experience, or even toward its possible expression. Leaning toward a desire is also about exploring the capacity that makes the expression of that desire possible.

Writing about a topic, or writing in a certain manner, could be difficult if there is another way of writing that needs to be exercised, a more urgent way, a more inviting way, a way that is more alive and real. The desire to be taken, the desire to be performed, is a quality we find in some paths. The desire is not only attached to the path, the way, the style, but also to the subject who can take it, walk into it, and embody it.

Sometimes it is difficult to write as a certain type of writer–as a type of subject–because there is another kind of writer–another type of subject–that needs to write. What I am trying describe here applies as much to writing as it does to living.

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