Meta-
The things the most poignant and important to me I have no compulsion to write about.
(e.g. My college Buddhist monastery experience back when; my first directing experience quite recently; my relationship with J. ongoing.)
Is it that the attempt to describe in mere written words will be too reductive; seem clichéd (or full-out kooky) because of the elemental strains they touch? Or simply are so full and rich within me, having experienced them, there's such a sense of completion that writing merely seems like empty, unnecessary effort? -or even detrimental to the quality of having had the experience, turning it into something separate (written)?
(Hm, I've had this debate in religion classes.)
Whatever it is:
I'd gone to the Buddhist monastery as part of a class, and for that class had intended to keep a journal of the experience. I wrote a very detailed entry about my first expedition to the monastery. I'm not sure what happened re: an account of the second. But the third, which involved an overnight stay and resulted in one of the truly wondrous "spiritual" moments of my life, which changed my life, I had an anti-need to write about it. I paid a personal visit to the teacher to briefly talk about it, but the depth of it was contained in me and trying to let it out in words just didn't fit.
For the directing experience... I don't want to try to explain. Partly 'cause I think for others to understand they'd have to have done some of it (directing and/or working with kids). And if they have, they know a lot of it already so my explaining would be redundant; and if they don't, my explaining would be cheap. But I really did something. I did something very good. Something very good and very real and important. And I'm very glad of it. ...So maybe I'll post some pictures. ;-)
For J.: it's all of the above, and also because it's too fine a line to walk, blathering on about a relationship. There are so few "good" ways to do it-the very act of externally portraying a relationship is a separate issue-laden entity and has its politics, most of which entirely separate from the relationship it's about. Either I'll weary (if not infuriate) people, or will seem like I'm trying to legitimize something, or simply start delving into things preferably left private for varying reasons. But it did occur to me recently that people might wonder why I almost never talk about my relationship here and whether that might entail speculation. It don't. :-)
So even though there are (I should hope!) much deeper things going on, I only write to mention that the unguessed answers to the previous quiz are up.
(It kills me that no one got #8. The problem, I suppose, is that it didn't mention rum.)
(e.g. My college Buddhist monastery experience back when; my first directing experience quite recently; my relationship with J. ongoing.)
Is it that the attempt to describe in mere written words will be too reductive; seem clichéd (or full-out kooky) because of the elemental strains they touch? Or simply are so full and rich within me, having experienced them, there's such a sense of completion that writing merely seems like empty, unnecessary effort? -or even detrimental to the quality of having had the experience, turning it into something separate (written)?
(Hm, I've had this debate in religion classes.)
Whatever it is:
I'd gone to the Buddhist monastery as part of a class, and for that class had intended to keep a journal of the experience. I wrote a very detailed entry about my first expedition to the monastery. I'm not sure what happened re: an account of the second. But the third, which involved an overnight stay and resulted in one of the truly wondrous "spiritual" moments of my life, which changed my life, I had an anti-need to write about it. I paid a personal visit to the teacher to briefly talk about it, but the depth of it was contained in me and trying to let it out in words just didn't fit.
For the directing experience... I don't want to try to explain. Partly 'cause I think for others to understand they'd have to have done some of it (directing and/or working with kids). And if they have, they know a lot of it already so my explaining would be redundant; and if they don't, my explaining would be cheap. But I really did something. I did something very good. Something very good and very real and important. And I'm very glad of it. ...So maybe I'll post some pictures. ;-)
For J.: it's all of the above, and also because it's too fine a line to walk, blathering on about a relationship. There are so few "good" ways to do it-the very act of externally portraying a relationship is a separate issue-laden entity and has its politics, most of which entirely separate from the relationship it's about. Either I'll weary (if not infuriate) people, or will seem like I'm trying to legitimize something, or simply start delving into things preferably left private for varying reasons. But it did occur to me recently that people might wonder why I almost never talk about my relationship here and whether that might entail speculation. It don't. :-)
So even though there are (I should hope!) much deeper things going on, I only write to mention that the unguessed answers to the previous quiz are up.
(It kills me that no one got #8. The problem, I suppose, is that it didn't mention rum.)