Enjoy the Silence
Today I didn’t want to have my eyes open at work. Perhaps it was just the fact I was bone-tired and would rather have been asleep, but I’ve realised (again) how much better the world is without visuals. Things clutter up your brain when you can see them, all sorts of images assaulting you and vying for your attention. It’s not nice. But close your eyes for a minute - or five minutes, or half an hour, however long you’ve got - and the world is so much more amazing. All those sounds, all those textures are so much more interesting than the gloss of the visual world. And I think it’s harder for sound to lie. Your ears can be tricked, but it’s harder if you listen carefully. People can hide in the shadows, posters and emails can make you think untrue things are real, but sounds give a far more realistic picture. Sometimes, especially in the morning at work, when I’m tired and I’d rather be in bed, I greet colleagues cheerfully, I smile and I try to look friendly, but I catch my voice sounding deadpan. It betrays me every time. Though purely without malice, I lie with my face and my words, but the quality of my voice gives me away. Nobody seems to notice, so I guess we’re all so locked into our ritual politeness and are oblivious to the tiny personal falsities we let forth every day.
So if you can, take a little while to just sit with your eyes closed and really listen to what’s about. I promise you it will be interesting as long as you don’t dismiss the mundane.
On an unrelated, or maybe related note, I found an interesting article/essay today by an author I’ve never read, but one quote really stuck with me:
”When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people’s, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception.”
Full essay by Zadie Smith here
I’m not usually one for quotes, but I printed this one out and highlighted it. If I had a nice little work area at home, I’d stick it up. As I’m about to embark on my second draft of my NaNoWriMo (and a rather drastic rewrite it would be too!), the whole thing really made a lot of sense to me. Cliche, of course, is one of my main weaknesses, but at least now i have the ideas on the page I can now spend a lot more time on the expression.
Now, to put some clothes on (41ºC temperatures have an uncanny way of making me strip down to my undies once I get home) and time for me to start writing again before my housemate gets home and my evening is taken up with banalities once more.
So if you can, take a little while to just sit with your eyes closed and really listen to what’s about. I promise you it will be interesting as long as you don’t dismiss the mundane.
On an unrelated, or maybe related note, I found an interesting article/essay today by an author I’ve never read, but one quote really stuck with me:
”When I write I am trying to express my way of being in the world. This is primarily a process of elimination: once you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people’s, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception.”
Full essay by Zadie Smith here
I’m not usually one for quotes, but I printed this one out and highlighted it. If I had a nice little work area at home, I’d stick it up. As I’m about to embark on my second draft of my NaNoWriMo (and a rather drastic rewrite it would be too!), the whole thing really made a lot of sense to me. Cliche, of course, is one of my main weaknesses, but at least now i have the ideas on the page I can now spend a lot more time on the expression.
Now, to put some clothes on (41ºC temperatures have an uncanny way of making me strip down to my undies once I get home) and time for me to start writing again before my housemate gets home and my evening is taken up with banalities once more.