Bad

I’ve been bad. I used a valid crisis as an excuse for not posting, not writing, and now all that I went through at the time seems oh-so-distant, almost—almost—inconsequential. But that’s also what writing does, it creates distance between what is experienced and what is told. And yet the whole point of writing is to make present and tangible what was experienced.

The distance was there even in the moment. Even though I didn’t write a word, I was seeing the events, including my thoughts, not merely as a human being having an experience, but as a writer, a witness standing to the side, observing the whole situation, crafting it into a story in my mind. A true story, but nonetheless a story. Makes me wonder if I’m living the experience more, or less, than the person who never thinks to write about it. But that’s neither here nor there, since even if I never write another word in my life, I will always see things as if I were going to write them. So I might as well write them.

I once wrote a very simple and very sad song about Krishna. A woman told me it never failed to make her cry, and asked me how I could sing the song without crying myself. I told her that the emotion that inspired the song had to be renounced for the sake of the song, and for the sake of the audience’s experience. I had to focus on things like breath, timing, intonation, volume—all very prosaic and cold-blooded calculations that I make as a performer, to give the impression of emotion in the singing of the song. I don’t scruple to use tricks (a catch of the breath, a slow, shuddering ending) to pull heartstrings, because what would be the point of not doing so? You don’t get a second chance. It’s not that I don’t experience the emotion when I sing, but I don’t give way to it. I imagine with writing a book or creating any full-length work it’s much the same thing: inspiration followed by a retraction of the emotional self in the rewriting. Experience becomes vision becomes object becomes product becomes—full circle—experience for the reader (or viewer or listener).

Yes, I’ve been bad, but I feel completely amoral about it. This is also bad, but at this point, feeling bad about being bad won’t accomplish anything. If I’m going to write at all, I can’t let the not-writing get the upper hand in any way; I have to be detached even from writing/not-writing. Right now I’m here, and the point is to show up, whatever I may feel notwithstanding.

I wasn’t planning to write even this much (is it too much? Does anybody out in the interwebs have any attention span left?), but I tricked myself into writing by initially posting only this simple-yet-accomplished little video*, which still has power to charm and inspire, even if it doesn’t employ expensive and advanced technology. Love and skill (and time) are all we need to make the connection at the heart of any creative enterprise. At least, it’s all we need to begin.

What is the most powerful, yet simple, thing you know, do, or possess?

*So much of getting anything done is employing tactics that don’t activate one’s anxiety.