For Pirandello: If we can't stand our naked faces and can't reveal our true thoughts, are we hiding ourselves from ourselves?
For Kundera: If lightness of being is unbearable, is heaviness of being then, quite easy to bear?
And for all of you in blogland: Can we write while we experience the surgeon cutting into our flesh, or do we only write way after, when the idea of that surgeon cutting into our flesh resurrects the entire experience?
well, I hope that when the surgeon is cutting on my flesh that I am deeply asleep and therefore not writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm with ellen on this one!
ReplyDeleteWow, you are in some kind of mood! Surgeon cutting our flesh metaphorically?
ReplyDeleteEllen's comment makes sense. Your questions are quite valid. Even though I have felt as if I were under anesthesia, or perhaps wished I were, I have written while I have felt much of who I am was being cut away. (Thanks for putting words to what I have felt.) I wrote to keep the pain at bay. This writing was for my own private experience. It has not been shared at all with anyone.
ReplyDeleteNow, I am coming out from the effect surgeon's knife, and I no longer seem to be able to write for my own view. I now seem to write only for the public to see.
I have no explanation for this.
Different styles for different folks. Some people could write under any circumstance, others need time to reflect and analyze.
ReplyDeleteWonderful questions, Rosaria. Must ponder awhile. Perhaps it depends on the type of surgery being performed: minor might be easy to depict right away; major would take much more time...
ReplyDeleteMy preference, or perhaps I should say need, is to write during the cutting when pain is intense. Most of the time, I don't share it but rather share the experience of what if feels like after. Writing makes pain bearable for me. It's funny how we may be raised so similar and yet are minds can be so different. I love this post btw.
ReplyDeleteI'm and black and white person and definitely prefer not to be capable of writing while a surgeon is slicing into me!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting thoughts from the experts - enjoyed your post today.
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ReplyDeletewe write while being cut, the day after, and forevermore. oh, and a few minutes before, as well.
ReplyDeletewe are never trained to be the same. there are too many variables.
yes, we're hiding! yes, we're hiding. it is our life's work to find ourselves.
heaviness of being is quite unbearable, as well. but both lightness and heaviness give pain and joy.
each question takes a life time in answering.
xo
erin
My writing is most fluid, most cathartic, most explicit if I do it while emotion is at its most intense, or very soon after.
ReplyDeleteThe unanswerable breadth of these questions is a glimmer of our complexity, and the challenge of what we do by writing. It makes me smile, to think of writing while under the knife, because it reminds me of my son's story from the cruise ship. He played in a band at night, and by day he helped with passenger excursions. They did a zip line, a very long one down a mountain in Baja. His first trip down he was holding his phone/camera in front of him. He suddenly realized: What the hell am I doing? Experiencing this rush through my camera? And then he held it out to the side and felt it through his senses. I think I do this with writing, always thinking of words while I walk through the woods and meadow. Why can't I just walk through the woods and meadow?
ReplyDeletei believe that there are moments for experiencing life and moments for reflecting upon it. difficult, if not impossible (or perhaps inadvisable!) to do both at the same time.
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