Since no one followed up on this post, I guess I will, and comment a bit on why I suspect they didn't. It's all about "content."
If you worked in the world of Internet, you'd probably have caught wind of a major debate/discussion that's been taking place there. Many are concerned over statistics that show that the websites that get the most "hits" are all about either searching for Other People's Content (Google, Yahoo, Baidu, Wikipedia) or "aggregating" Other People's Content (Upworthy, Jezebel, Reddit, Digg). Since the name of the game in making money from the Web is number of hits, and since the world really doesn't need more search engines, this means that most of the "creative" energy of developers tends to get channeled into sites that actually display no creativity. All that they do is aggregate facts, gossip, and news factoids about celebrities or those who want to take advantage of this fascination with the ephemeral to become celebrities and regurgitate it. The only real "creativity" displayed by these sites is in their Subject lines, which are carefully crafted to entice people to click on them and thus register another "hit." Suffice it to say that there is a "class war" going on between these "content disseminators" and the people who actually WRITE (or produce music or video), and thus become "content creators." To be honest, there are some sites like Huffpost, Salon, Slate, and a few others that *do* provide a forum for content creators and pay them for it, but all you have to do is look at the degradation of Huffpost over the last couple of years to realize that their content articles are now the minority of what they post, and the fluff articles with snappy Subject lines are now the majority. And because these sites are *businesses*, and trying to make money, it is likely that this business model will prevail -- after all, you don't have to pay anybody much of anything to redistribute an article, and you *do* have to pay someone to create original content. I'm rapping about this because I think there is a parallel to this phenomenon on Internet talk forums. Perhaps it's because people have had their attention spans shortened from reading so much fluff, perhaps it's because they are just caught in their own narcissistic business model and trolling for as many "hits" as they can rack up, and possibly it's because they really can't think of anything original and creative to say. Whatever the reason, there is a strong lack of any *original content* on these forums. They consist primarily -- like the more mainstream content aggregator sites -- of people reposting something they found elsewhere, then arguing about it. Nowhere do you see this more than in the so-called "spiritual" talk forums. Pay attention sometime, and see for yourself whether I'm correct about this. *Most* of what you read on such forums consists of stories about spiritual teachers or "saints" that in many cases the person writing *never even met*, or regurgitated writings from so-called "scriptures" or books written about (rarely by) these other teachers. Occasionally someone posts a "personal experience story," but even then the events being written about tend to be set far in the past -- people write about some great experience they supposedly had twenty or thirty years ago around some supposedly charismatic teacher. But almost no one writes about the spiritual experiences they have on a daily basis. Go figure. It's almost as if most of the people writing to these forums don't *HAVE* any here-and-now, in-the-present spiritual experiences. Almost as if. Why I wrote the post this one is a followup to is that I was trying to rap about the "high" that you can get from writing creatively, and in a spiritual context. I was hoping to maybe inspire others on FFL to do a bit more of that kind of writing, if they had it in them. The lack of response would seem to indicate that -- sadly -- most folks here *don't* have it in them. So I'll try again, as is my wont in a bit more in-your-face manner. :-) What's up with having paid your "spiritual dues" for twenty to forty years and *having nothing to say about your everyday spiritual life*? Doesn't that strike you as more than a little SAD? Is the only source of inspiration in your life stories from 20-30 years ago, or stories that you read in some scripture or book about someone you never even *met*? As for *arguing* about these things, give me a break. How can anyone consider someone who never *met* a certain spiritual teacher "authoritative" about what he or she taught? That's like believing you can look something up on Wikipedia and be an "expert" about it. Similarly, how can anyone criticize the few here who *do* write creatively about their own experiences from time to time when *they never have*. The *priorities* on these spiritual forums sometimes dismay me. People who tend to be narcissistic and wordy and who post a lot get considered to be "authorities," when in reality many of them never met the spiritual teachers they're supposedly authorities about. Some of them have never had any significant spiritual experiences *of their own*, and are posing authoritatively about things they've only heard about or read about. Go figure. Me, I'd rather read about people's first-hand experiences. It's not necessary to "understand" these experiences, or even to have theories about what they were and what caused them -- the writing process is, after all, an avenue for trying to figure these things out for oneself. But the *lack* of such writing -- and yes, here on Fairfield Life -- strikes me as being a strong parallel to the larger Internet phenomenon of "content disseminators" vs. true "content creators." When posters go years and even decades without being able to write even a single post about their own spiritual experiences, I am tempted to believe that they *haven't ever had any*. But I could be wrong about this. If I am, don't try to argue with me with more stuck-in-your-head intellectualisms. That doesn't "prove" shit. If you want to prove me wrong, all you have to do is write about a few of your recent personal, subjective spiritual experiences and post them to this forum. If you can't, I don't see how you can possibly have a problem with me and other people assuming you don't have any. --- In [email protected], "TurquoiseB" wrote: > > Since Michael got me thinking about the writing thang again, I thought > I'd try to start a thread *about* writing, and hope that it doesn't > devolve into mere ankle-biting. > > Writing is a Class I narcotic. > > If you can get into the flow of it, it's a more powerful high than any > street drug you can name. I've tried many of them in my day, so I speak > with some experience on this subject. :-) > > And the "high" comes -- at least for me -- from a phenomenon I call > "reversing the flow." It's IMO what artists do that transforms what they > do from mere doing into art. > > Most of our lives we spend "taking in" the flow of life. We are > bombarded by so many sights, sounds, and experiences. They flow > seemingly from "outside" of us *into* us, where we process them mentally > and physically and turn them into our perception of reality. And we also > turn them into our philosophy about life, whether we think of it in > those terms or not. Each of these experiences *shapes* us, *colors* us, > and transforms us in many ways. > > And ALL of these experiences are still floating around in our brains > somewhere, ready to be accessed if we can only find the key to get back > into them. For me, one of the mechanisms that provides that key is > writing. When I sit down and try to write about a past spiritual > experience, often magic happens and it becomes a present spiritual > experience. > > When you find the key to these formative spiritual experiences in your > brain, you can allow them to "come out," and express themselves in your > writing. And that process feels very much to me like "reversing the > flow." Instead of "taking in" the experiences the world has presented > you, you get to "send them out" instead. You get to feel the same > energies, but now flowing *from* you back out into the world they came > from. It's a real rush. > > Trying to capture the elusiveness of a very high alternate reality state > of attention in words, it's as if the only way my brain can accomplish > that is by putting me *back* into that same alternate reality state of > attention. And the wonderful thing is that it's *still there*. By > writing about it I can pull that state of attention into the present, > "put it on" like a suit of clothes, and "wear" it again while writing > the story. > > It's just the damndest thing. It's pretty much my favorite thing these > days, now that I've kinda weaned myself from chasing gurus. > > One of the most fun things for me, which you don't get to see often here > on this forum because I don't post those kinds of writing here, is to > write characters. What makes that fun is that I do a kind of mental > trick when I do so. I "put on" the character, assume their identity, and > "wear" them for the duration of the story or scene I'm writing. > > That's what made the writing of the two scorpion stories in Road Trip > Mind so much fun for me. The first one came out fairly spontaneously, > during that short "time window" after an experience where you can still > remember it clearly. The event in question had been a particularly > powerful desert trip with Rama, and I was still reeling from it, so much > so that I wasn't sure I still had an "I" to reel. I had actually made an > audio tape of some of the things said on that trip, and after > transcribing it I knew I wanted to turn it into a story, but every > attempt to start writing it failed until I hit upon a quirky idea. > > Why not tell my story from someone else's point of view? Tell about the > same events, but "as seen by" someone else. And so, being me, I chose an > Anza-Borrego Desert scorpion as my narrator. I tried to imagine what it > would be like to be a wise-ass scorpion living in Carrizo Gorge, and > "put on" his mindset. Then I managed to "wear" it while writing the > story. The whole story, as it turned out, because it all came out in one > short burst of binge-writing. And man! was that FUN. What a high -- > being not only someone else, but someone not even of your species. > > Unfortunately, both in real life and in my story, the evening didn't > turn out so well for my narrator-scorpion. He got smushed. And on some > level I missed him, because I'd had so much FUN being him. Then, years > later, when I was struggling to find a way to *end* Road Trip Mind, my > Native American girlfriend read the first scorpion story and said, "You > should write about him again." That idea stuck in my head, even though I > had killed him off in the first story. > > So I just reincarnated him. The last story in RTM is written from the > point of view of his next incarnation. Talk about FUN! I was sitting > there in a Santa Fe bar laughing out loud as I got to be him again, and > that story just came out, again all in one session of binge-writing. > What a high. I think the waitress thought I was high on something. > > And I was. I was high on writing. > > Which brings me back to the original subject. *Can* we think of writing > not only as a way to capture and convey spiritual experience to others, > but as a *spiritual experience in itself*? I think we can. > > Musicians certainly do it. Painters are famous for doing it. Both sets > of artists have a long history of talking about the experience *of* > composing music, or creating a painting. Well, I'm just suggesting that > writers can, too. > > Good spiritual writing (and probably good writing, period) is IMO > achieved by getting the fuck out of one's own way. The more *self* > you've got "in the way" when you reverse the flow, the less able you are > to write effectively. To allow the creative flow *to* flow, you've kinda > got to drop being a self, and just be. > > It sounds like work, but it isn't. It's a real high. And unlike drugs, > not only is the first one free, all the subsequent ones are, too. >
