And Why I Still Write
I Don’t Write because I Know.
I Don’t Write because I Understand.
I Write as a Way of Seeking Understanding.
For me, Writing is a Critical, Disruptive,
Transformative Process of Inquiry.
"Bear in mind what the humble humorist James Thurber said when asked why he wrote: 'I don’t know what I think until I read what I have to say.' (Philip Cousineau)
“I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together.” (Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing)
When I write, I don’t regurgitate other people’s answers.
What I write is who I am and who I am is what I write.
My words do not come from the noise of external sources, external voices.
They are my internal voice; words from silence, words from the center, words from the heart.
In the world of creative expression, there is no right and wrong, good and bad, light and dark because it is an expression of the artist or the writer; raw and vulnerable, a statement of who I am from deep within.
“A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.”(Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 – November 20, 1910), was a Russian writer many consider to have been one of the world's greatest novelists)
Some writers write the answers to to questions that they think they “know” often after many years of study and research. This is a very traditional and necessary way of writing. All of my college and grad school books were books full of expertise. Almost all of the religious books I’ve read for 50 years are written this way also. These books display the great knowledge of the author, puffing them up with fame, success, and notoriety. But for me, this no longer works. I’ve read and read and read their books on being more spiritual, mature, and wise. But… “of the making of many books, there is no end; and much study is a weariness to the body” (Ecclesiastes).
The point of this blog, Living with Open Hands, is birthed out of the feeling that each of those books and teachers were dragging me back into a box or a pit that is so narrow and shallow that I would suffocate if I continued. I had become so stuffed up with knowledge, being right, and "knowing" that I was going to burst. Actually, I did. It took this dramatic upheaval, uprooting, and unraveling for me to see things differently. And once the heart has stretched and expanded to such a new dimension, it cannot go back to its original shape. I’ve used analogies like putting new wine in old wineskins in my writing. Another way of seeing it for me is the analogy of a baby maturing from “being fed with milk” (nourished by external authorities) to an adult “feeding oneself with solid food or meat” (nourishment from the Source deep within). But then going on to express one's inner workings in a way that just may touch another's vulnerability with my own vulnerability, another's story with my own story that is original, authentic, and radical in the sense of its root meaning of root. Truly being radical begins with downward movement to the "root" that is grounded in the Source. Radical and Root both come from the same root word.
From Other People’s Stories to My Story
For 50+ years, my spiritual journey consisted of allowing myself to be fed by the great teachers and preachers and professors and various authorities and experts without ever learning to shift my source of life and love and wisdom from external people telling me what to be, think, and do, to my inner teacher inspiring me and enlightening me as I grow into a mature spiritual man. My voice of authority could no longer come from within the cocoon, the bubble, the echo chamber, the box where we seek conformity and comfort or any other external authority or influence. It took a long long time to wake up. But can I ever go backward? Do I ever want to go backward? IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH EASIER TO STAY PUT IN MY COCOON! I don’t think it is possible anymore than it is possible for the butterfly to crawl back into its cocoon. First, the cocoon is gone, shriveled up, useless, and in the wind, and second, I could not fit. That’s not the shape of my heart now. This is like turning a freshwater pond into a stagnant, smelly pond that recycles the same old stink over and over and over; a weariness of the soul. This was the reason I started writing in the first place. (see my first blog post written on April 1, 2006, Adrift in an Endless Sea). This is when I realized that I have a voice and that my voice matters.
Another way I see it is that I have grown from an author that writes what he/she “knows” or thinks he/she knows into an author that writes an autobiography, or a novel. This is a type of writing that brings forth inner knowing and expresses it in this world so that others can see and feel and listen and learn another perspective about life. This is a type of writing where the author must break open the heart and allow the stories from within to flow outward for the world to see them, feel them, and touch them; without expectations, hidden agendas, or ulterior motives of convincement. We can argue and disagree with each other's opinions and beliefs but we cannot disagree with each other's experiences; the stories of their lives.
This opening requires such great vulnerability that it can quickly become a wound or even a scar when it is not “touched” with tenderness and gentleness, honor and respect. Sometimes I get questioned about something I wrote. "What if you are wrong?" And I stop and think how absurd this is. Most of the time I had no words for a response but now I’m seeing that this is a writing paradigm that has been turned on its head. Not all people understand. Not all people can. Not all people want to. But that’s ok. It is like an artist’s creation, a sculpture or painting, a novel or an autobiography being criticized or judged to be right or wrong, good or bad. How absurd to try to box up such inspiration and creation. How absurd to correct some minor points. How absurd to argue. My life is what it is. It can be nothing else, nothing less, nothing more. That’s all it is and all it can be. Take it or leave it. Accept it or move on. I am what I am. And I am exactly who I am meant to be. I am exactly where I am meant to be. And I’m good…
For me, in order for writing to become a transformational process, I am learning to ask better questions in order to go deeper, inquiring into what I don’t know, in wonder and awe of the mystery. Never ever wanting to solve the awesomeness of mystery, only to appreciate and behold it in wonder.
When I write, I don’t expect everybody to understand. I stand alone on this island of me. People can learn to speak my language and I theirs, but first the person must come to my island, my world, seeking to go deeper in order to begin to understand. Only if we first desire and find common ground can reciprocation begin.
When in Doubt, I Write!
“When in doubt, write,” an English teacher drummed into me long ago. Why is this so important? Because you are changing…and there is nothing more fascinating than to closely observe the process of change and deepening, and how we respond to that quicksilver phenomenon. Bear in mind what the humble humorist James Thurber said when asked why he wrote: “I don’t know what I think until I read what I have to say.”
-Philip Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage, page 113
For me, writing is a process
of the intrigue of inquiry
into life without hidden agendas, expectations, or
presuppositions of an answer.
Because any truth jammed into a fixed agenda
is nothing more than diluted truth with a spin,
which is not truth at all.
Writing is my way of living the questions
and over the years, as I fully
and faithfully inhabit the questions,
I wait to see if perhaps tentative answers
might grace me with their emergence.
I started blogging 17 years ago. I had no idea what I was doing or why. I just knew I needed a creative outlet and a way to work through the growing dissonance in my head and heart that is like the tinnitus that I now experience in my ears 24/7. The constant ringing of dissonance, between reality and all things I’ve been told to believe, was both a distant siren (an alarm) and a siren song (an irresistible magnet) that I heeded by writing. I didn’t even know what a blog was back then. But I wanted a platform that I could use because I sensed the need to keep coming back in order to remember (see Cairn of Remembrance). What I write is very personal and I had no intention of using a blog so that it would reach others. At that time, I had an audience of one. Me. A few months later, my grandma had found it. She said that she loves reading what I write, and everytime she reads it again, she gets something new from it (that blew me away). So she said that she started printing my blog. 60 pages later… I miss her. My dad has also been one of my most faithful readers too. I appreciate his open mindedness to exposing himself to what he called my renegade thinking. That was meant as a compliment, I think.
As I continued to blog, slow but steady, I figured out how to check the blog stats. Back then, I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Living with Open Hands seemed to have appeal to many people from many walks of life; countries and religions, theists and nontheists. I was always careful to not write in a way that was dogmatic with a lot of religious language. I was very careful about the use of god, knowing that no one really thinks of god in the same ways, that not only was it was very personal, but often very divisive. The values and beliefs of others are always deeply personal. We must always honor and respect others. I felt a great need to get past all of the philosophical, political, religious, racial, cultural barriers we construct between humans. I wanted to overcome or get past all those stories we tell ourselves and go to the basic common ground of humanity. I have had a great need to write in such a way as to not divide but unite, not spotlighting differences but rather finding common ground.
This was my marching orders from within: “Gotta search the silence of the soul’s wild places to find a voice that’ll cross the spaces.” (Bruce Cockburn)
And my best imagined outcome is this: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” (Rumi)
So the stats kept growing over the years and then I figured out a way to track back where the blog readers were from. Currently, I have had over 80,000 hits from 150 countries. I am shocked and amazed and grateful for the affirmation I got even though that was not immediately my intention.
As I write, I always remember:
Life is more about the questions than the answers.
Life is more about the process than the outcome.
Life is more about the journey than the destination.
I write to develop depth, understanding, compassion,
and the passionate patience of waiting and listening to life;
observing and experiencing life just as it is,
life without pretense or expectation,
life without a hidden agenda,
life without appeal.
Camus called this living fiercely in "rebellion against the absurdity of life," "living to the point of tears," or “living without appeal,” which I am gradually understanding to be living without any appeal to our pet illusions of gods or saviors or other stories, dogma or beliefs to save me from me and my unwillingness to face “life as it is”.
“Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline)
And what is Depth? Why does it Matter?
Recently, I was questioned about my religious beliefs by a family member that is a very evangelical Christian, a person that I care about. After I explained how I differed in the way I see the world and how I see religion and god, and heaven and hell, and dogma and doctrine. The response was, “Wow! That’s deep! But I do so much better just taking things as they come. I don’t like to go deep. There’s no need for it.” Or something close to that. I’ve been struggling with that response. I would never try to convince that person of my way of seeing and interacting with life. But I know that for me, if I lived like that, my mind and my heart would shrivel up and close up so tight that I would probably die; or at least that response would be a sort of philosophical and spiritual suicide for me. I'd become a stagnant pond with nothing fresh or new or pristine. For me, following someone else’s stories and myths is cheating myself of “life as it is” by prescribing answers where there are none, by killing the questions and the doubts before they have a chance to live in me. Any type of system of belief is taking the easy way of downloading prefabricated answers and cancelling the questions and the mystery. Life does not work that way.
This is just who I am, and who I am is what I write;
and it doesn’t matter that others are different. I’ve always known that anyway. I’ve always been a misfit and a renegade thinker. The older I get the more this is true. But this is something that I must answer for myself.
I refuse any form of suicide, killing myself or cancelling my questions, neither physical suicide nor philosophical suicide... and that is why I write.
I need to keep fanning the flames of passion and compassion for all of life; as it comes, as it is. Writing is a way of fanning those critical flames. I need to keep questioning things, questioning everything because I am coming to a conclusion (not an answer) that we all have been led astray and fed a lot of false narratives. Our conditioning is insurmountable. And I'm sure that there is a better chance that we are all wrong than that any of us are right. All of our lives, those stories are telling us who we are and what we are supposed to do and to think, how to see and to feel, how to understand and interpret the things that we see on the surface of this life. But I know, there is more if we can get past the surface! I can sense it, feel it, see it.
All dogma kills understanding and force-stops all learning and dialogue because
“if I already know, I can no longer learn.”
Penetrating the Facade
“As a blind man, I think that I see a lot better than I did when I was sighted because I don’t really think we see with our eyes. I think we live in darkness when we don’t look at what’s real about ourselves, about others, or about life. No operation can do that. When you see what’s real about yourself, you see a lot. And you don’t need eyes for that.” (At First Sight 1999 Val Kilmer)
”What every single human being longs for, at the deepest level, is to be seen for who they are.” (Sarita Chawla)
And on the flip side, I believe that what each of us longs for is to See and Live “life as it is” without appeal, pretense, expectation, illusion, or deception.
For me, writing is a form of discernment, a way of Seeing into life in different ways, penetrating our fabricated facade more deeply, more honestly, more authentically. But in order for this to happen we must have an open will, a willingness to follow the truth wherever it may lead.
For me, writing is a spiritual discipline of going from
seeing with my eyes to Seeing with my heart.
“When the eyes of the heart open, we can see the inner realities hidden behind the outer forms of the this world. When the ears of the heart open, we can hear what is hidden behind words; we can hear truth.” (James Fadiman)
An Intriguing Discovery of the Other
Ever since I started blogging my spiritual journey, I’ve found that I long for conversations that matter. That too is why depth matters. So often there is so much noise. Nothing more than just clamoring, often for my attention. But how rare it is for that clamoring to be replaced with conversations that matter. My writing has become part of the process of deepening that allows me to See others and to Hear others beyond the surface to the heart, the source at the center of each of us. This is how we find ourselves again in a world of noise… neverending bantering and blathering. When we connect at a deeper level, we create new meanings, new understandings, and new connections. But this can happen only when we get dogma out of the way. That is exactly what this life needs. Often, my conversations at this level last for 3 or 4 hours, once we break through the surface and the facade.
“When is the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation which wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation in this culture. When have you had a great conversation in which: you overheard yourself saying things you never knew you knew; you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you had thought you had lost; you and your partner ascended to a different plane; memories of the exchange continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterward?” (John O’Donohue)
Learning to talk with each other again.
Our lost treasure: conversations that matter
Once we get beyond ideas and assumptions, opinions and beliefs, we find a field that is purely human, the hummus of common ground, our ground of being. It is then that conversation becomes true dialogue; a creative force filling the space between, flowing among us. It is this creative force that begets something new and alive that sustains itself in the deeper connection and understanding that was just created.
It is when we hear the other person saying things that “found places within you that you had thought you had lost.”
It is when “you overhear yourself saying things you never knew you knew.”
It is when the shared words between us remind us of those things that we have always known but have long forgotten.
“A great question refuses to be answered; so it keeps leading us into deeper connections with each other and into deeper thinking.” (Judith Snow)
And greater questions lead us
into greater conversations and deeper understanding;
among, between, and through each other.
A great conversation awakens memory of ancient wisdom that resonates deep in the bones of our being.
A great conversation is the process of uncovering shared understanding of reality and truth; a process for moving forward together.
“Since our earliest ancestors gathered in circles around the warmth of a fire, conversation has been our primary means for discovering what we care about, sharing knowledge, imagining the future, and acting together to both survive and thrive.” (Juanita Brown, The World Cafe)
Even though this journey may take me down a way less traveled, it is what I must do. I cannot settle for what I have been told. I’d be lying to myself. I’d be giving up. I’d be committing philosophical and spiritual suicide.
“Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)
And I began to see that for me writing is non-negotiable… I must!
I must keep writing to strip life down to the essentials.
I must keep writing to discern those things that are treasures or trash.
I must keep writing to fan the flames of compassion and understanding.
I must keep writing to humiliate and humble myself
right down to the bones,
leaving no pretense or pride,
no assumptions or presumptions,
no preconceived notions or illusions.
I must keep writing to see more clearly life as it is.
I must keep writing to keep opening
my mind, my eyes, and my ears.
I must keep writing to make sure my heart
breaks open and stays open.
Although I have been greatly deepened by further opening my mind, my heart, and my will as I have been writing for the last 15 years, there are some things that seem to stand true. My insight into what the spiritual discipline of writing was beginning to do back then when I was first getting started holds true:
Writing has become a way for me to find my voice
and to give voice to my questions;
a journey from dogmatism and certainty
to inquiry and dialogue,
from a quest from knowing
to embracing mystery and wonder,
from living with clenched fists to living with open hands.
A journey through the dark night of my soul
to a deeper understanding,
from seeing with my eyes,
to Seeing with my heart.
Life is unfolding before us each and every moment.
For so many years I missed it.
Life kept sliding by as I slept.
Life is a journey, a process we must live out.
No one but you can experience what life has for you.
And writing, for me, is a critical, crucial, compelling, and central part of that process.
A MYTHIC JOURNEY
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” (Carl Jung)
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” (Rumi)
“Complicated creatures, we are each a mix of light and dark. For those of us on a spiritual path, it is essential that we explore this inner territory, for what lies outside our awareness exerts a powerful control over it.” (Leia Marie Faith)
A HISTORY OF THE HEART
“Even the longest, most detailed, and most expressive obituaries always omit the essence of a life: the history of a person’s heart. How many of us wish we had asked more questions of someone we loved, not about what happened and when but about the inner experience of being that person? About hopes and fulfillments, failures and regrets? About moments of despair and moments of meaning?” (Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy)
For more on my life experiences that compelled me to begin to write, check out my original post from when I first began: https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/why-i-write/
Part of the significance of writing for me is also so that I would always remember what I learned, the pain I felt, the lessons learned, and the total devastation that life brought. https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2020/08/20/cairn-of-remembrance/
"My writing is of a very different kind from anything I've heard about. All this mythological material is out there, a big gathering of stuff, and I have been reading it for some forty- or fifty-odd years. There are various ways of handling that. The most common is to put the material together and publish a scholarly book about it. But when I'm writing, I try to get a sense of an experiential relationship to the material. In fact, I can't write unless that happens … I don't write unless the stuff is really working on me, and my selection of material depends on what works."
Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
"When I wrote about the Call forty years ago, I was writing out of what I had read. Now that I've lived it, I know it's correct. And that's how it turned out. I mean, it's valid. These mythic clues work."
Joseph Campbell, An Open Life (with Michael Toms) p. 26.
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