Lisa I found myself disappointed that the more I learned about writing the less I was able to write. In my second year I joined the school newspaper in hopes that writing articles might jog my imagination but it wasn’t the same. All I’d do is interview people and write what they said. The editors would say, “This is good, Lisa.” And they’d print it. But I knew better. I found that I had all these new tools at my disposal and yet I couldn’t write a single original word of my own.
I felt I was being indoctrinated. By my third year I was no longer sure that I wanted to write. I was flunking out. I knew all the rules by heart but when I tried to write they’d get in the way. Writing used to feel so natural for me. One word would lead to another. Now though, as soon as I wrote a word I’d think, no, that’s not right. I would be compelled to start over. I kept seeking after something better. The problem was, there would always be something better. I knew that for a fact but I couldn’t let go. I met Richard Roberts that year. He wasn’t a student at the university but rather he worked in the maintenance department polishing floors and washing the tops of tables after the students had all gone home for the day. I had stayed after class to talk to one of my professors in hopes of solving my writer’s block. Ms. Chambers was a published author and I’d read her work before signing up for her class. I admired her. But today she seemed miffed. “Lisa, you haven’t turned in a paper all semester.” “Yes, I know.” I felt six years old. “I’m having problems writing. That’s why I asked to talk with you.” “Pick out something and write about it,” she suggested. “I try, but I’m always second guessing myself. I know that I can do better. So I start over again. I can’t seem to get past that first word, though.” “Then try starting in the middle. And if that doesn’t work, start at the end. That’s how I do all my best writing. I start with the ending and work backwards. Try it. You’re too good of a student to be failing, Lisa.” The sunshine outside the window seemed brighter. It sounded so simple. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it. I couldn’t wait to get back to my dorm and start writing. As I rounded a corner I crashed into a man in a uniform pushing a cleaning cart through the hallway. I dropped the books and papers I held in my arms to grab onto to him in an effort to keep myself from falling down but he lost his balance too and we ended up on the floor in a heap with him on top. “You’re so soft,” he said. “Get off me, you idiot,” I growled. But when I looked at the smile on his face I couldn’t help but change my mood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Help me up, would you please?” He rolled off me, got to his feet, and offered me his hand. It felt callused, strong, and warm. I’d never felt a hand like that before. All the boys I dated in high school had weak clammy hands. The name on his uniform said Richard. As I stood up and brushed myself off he started gathering up my books and papers scattered in the hall. He said he was sorry for bumping into me but he hadn’t expected anyone else to be here. “Usually everyone is gone by now,” he explained. Instead of handing my books back to me he offered to see me back to my dorm. “These are heavy. Let me help you to make up for knocking you down.” “It was as much my fault as yours,” I said. “And what about your work… won’t you get in trouble for leaving?” “I don’t care,” he said. “If they fire me… so what? I was looking for a job when I found this one.” I laughed and said okay. I told him not to get any ideas though. I wasn’t planning on seeing anyone. I was there to learn to write. We walked together across campus to the dormitories and he told me how he’d like to go to college too but he couldn’t afford the tuition. He said that this cleaning gig was a temporary job. He was going to truck driving school on weekends and planned on leasing his own big-rig to drive cross country. “They say you can make as much as a college graduate.” “I’m impressed,” I told him and I meant it. “Then maybe you’ll let me buy you a cup of coffee later.” I hesitated. I’d been trying so hard to be a writer that I’d put the rest of life on the back burner. Maybe this is what I needed. On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 12:53 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > She's what you could call a "contrarian." "You're a loner, just like me," > she had said the day they left Kingston. That stuck in his mind because it > was true. But what she meant by it was not just someone who's alone, but a > contrarian, someone who's always doing everything the wrong way, just out of > pure willfulness, it would seem. > > Contrarians sometimes just seem to savagely attack every kind of static > moral pattern they can find. It seems as though they're trying to destroy > morality as a kind of revenge. > > He'd gotten that word out of his anthropology reading. It indicated there's > more to contrarians than just individual "wrongness." It's common to many > cultures. That *brujo *in Zuni was a contrarian. The Cheyenne had a whole > society of contrarians to assimilate the phenomenon within their social > fabric. Cheyenne contrarians rode their horses sitting backward, entered > teepees backward, and had a whole repertoire of things they performed in a > contrary way. Members seemed to enter the contrary society when they felt a > great wrong, a great injustice, had been done to them and apparently it was > felt that this was a way of resolving the injustice. > > Once you see it in another culture like that and then come back to our own > you can see that in an unofficial way we have our contrarian societies too. > The "Bohemians" of the Victorian era were contrarians. So, to some extent, > were the Hippies of the sixties. > > Anyway it seemed to him that when you add a concept of "Dynamic Quality" to > a rational understanding of the world, you can add a lot to an understanding > of contrarians. Some of them aren't just being negative toward static moral > patterns, they are actively pursuing a Dynamic goal. > > Everybody gets on these negative contrarian streaks from time to time, where > no matter what it is they're supposed to be doing, that's the one thing they > least want to do. Sometimes it's a degenerative negativism, where biological > forces are driving it. Sometimes it's an ego pattern that says, "I'm too > important to be doing all this dumb static stuff." > > Sometimes the contrary anti-static drive becomes a static pattern of its > own. This contrary stuff can become a tiger-ride where you can't get off and > you have to keep riding and riding until the tiger finally throws you and > devours you. The degenerative contrarian stuff usually goes that way. Drugs, > illicit sex, alcohol and the like. > > But sometimes it's Dynamic, where your whole being senses that the static > situation is an enemy of life itself. That's what drives the really creative > people-the artists, composers, revolutionaries and the like-the feeling that > if they don't break out of this jailhouse somebody has built around them, > they're going to die. > > But they're not being contrary in a way that is just decadent. They're way > too energetic and aggressive to be decadent. They're fighting for some kind > of Dynamic freedom from the static patterns. But the Dynamic freedom they're > fighting for is a kind of morality too. And it's a highly important part of > the overall moral process. It's often confused with degeneracy but it's > actually a form of moral regeneration. Without its continual refreshment > static patterns would simply die of old age. > > And Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know? Sometimes the insane and > the contrarians and the ones who are the closest to suicide are the most > valuable people society has. They may be precursors of social change. > They've taken the burdens of the culture onto themselves, and in their > struggle to solve their own problems they're solving problems for the > culture as well. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
