Meeting the Muses
Writing is thinking. You cannot say you are really thinking unless and until you start writing.
This is the phrase you may often hear from many writers. I totally agree with them. There are a lot of (seemingly) good ideas in your mind and you can create a lot of fabulous outlines out of them. But then, your thoughts can never become "substantial" unless and until you start writing. Perhaps (if you have written a lot) you can recall such experiences that your writing has deviated from your original thoughts, ideas, and outlines as if the process of writing per se has "created" something totally new.
This is what we "freewriting enthusiasts" believe as its key advantage and benefit. We do not trust our thoughts and ideas in our mind alone; we do not trust our nifty outlines on a piece of paper alone. What we believe is only the real process of writing.
This is similar to the analogy of "plan vs. reality", or "worry vs. reality". We have a lot of plans in our mind and as the date is getting nearer, we try to make such plans as details as possible in anticipating and simulating all the possible scenarios. But then, once the moment has arrived, there are still a lot of "surprises" we did not expect. Some are good; some are not so good or even bad. But sometimes there is a very good surprise. We call it "serendipity".
Or else, we tend to worry a lot of thing. On all the possible, potential risks, if we think too much, sometimes they overwhelm us. And yet in reality, what you've faced is not so bad as you worried previously.
Freewriting is one of modest (well, secretly ambitious) efforts to grasp such serendipity. This is a kind of precious gift that the Muses of Creativity give us in celebrating our courage to start overcoming our writer's block. The Muses are always celebrating our very courage of starting anything. Once you've started, you are qualified to get such gifts one way or another.
If you believe "writing is thinking", then, you can actually love writing, which is basically very good. While majority of people (if I'm not mistaken) are not really fond of writing, if they can communicate through talking, then they feel they do not have to spend any extra time and effort for writing.
In my case, I am basically a believer of "writing is thinking"; the person who believes the power of writing. Even for communications, such person tends to believe that writing can make your communications deeper and more profound.
For any intellectual pursuits, writing is one of the basic and fundamental methods to do it. For example, the conclusion you wrote in your dissertation can be really "conclusive" mainly and crucially due to the process of your writing. This is especially true for the field of human sciences. As for natural sciences and partly for social sciences, perhaps the conclusion derived from the experiments, observations, and surveys would be more important. But even so, I think in the process of writing those "scientists" can still find a lot of deeper and valuable insights because of their very process of writing on the results at hand.
Recently, however, especially in the field of "business" it seems that such process of writing has been overlooked or even unvalued if I'm not mistaken or misunderstood.
I agree with the suggestions like "your email should be KISS (Keep it short, stupid! Or, Keep it simple and short) ". Some say your email should be maximum 5 lines; if more than 5, then you should use a phone call instead.
For, in the business world people are always very busy, they say. They are bombarded by tons of emails, so they do not have time to read your emails and reply to you. Use phone calls, chats, and twitters - whatever you can "chat" easily, instead of "dialogue" mindfully.
I completely agree with these suggestions from those well-known business life-hack gurus. If you write a novel-like longer email, then you look stupid, or you are actually. That is true. Perhaps I look stupid here and was stupid in writing longer and longer emails; believing the longer you write the more you can communicate well, profoundly, and sincerely.
Currently I am trying my best to keep my emails short (and hopefully not stupid!) and if anything complicated happened, I consider setting up a teleconference, or any non-writing method of communication.
While totally agreeing with these suggestions and trying my best efforts to apply them for my everyday business situations, I still believe that there must be the situation that we should really respect the process of writing and spend time to write longer in order to receive the special gifts from the Muses of Creativity.
Our breathing should be deeper and if possible slower for us to conduct meditation so that we can sense the higher and deeper dimension of consciousness. Being a minimalist is not making things less, short, and shallow instantly, but seeing and understanding things more profoundly and removing unnecessary things from such higher and deeper perspective; this perspective is only what the Muses can provide us; and the Muses can show themselves to us only when we respect the process of writing.
Thank you!
Tom
This is the phrase you may often hear from many writers. I totally agree with them. There are a lot of (seemingly) good ideas in your mind and you can create a lot of fabulous outlines out of them. But then, your thoughts can never become "substantial" unless and until you start writing. Perhaps (if you have written a lot) you can recall such experiences that your writing has deviated from your original thoughts, ideas, and outlines as if the process of writing per se has "created" something totally new.
Muses and Poets
Sarcophagus relief. Pio Clementino Museum; Octagonal Court
This is what we "freewriting enthusiasts" believe as its key advantage and benefit. We do not trust our thoughts and ideas in our mind alone; we do not trust our nifty outlines on a piece of paper alone. What we believe is only the real process of writing.
This is similar to the analogy of "plan vs. reality", or "worry vs. reality". We have a lot of plans in our mind and as the date is getting nearer, we try to make such plans as details as possible in anticipating and simulating all the possible scenarios. But then, once the moment has arrived, there are still a lot of "surprises" we did not expect. Some are good; some are not so good or even bad. But sometimes there is a very good surprise. We call it "serendipity".
Or else, we tend to worry a lot of thing. On all the possible, potential risks, if we think too much, sometimes they overwhelm us. And yet in reality, what you've faced is not so bad as you worried previously.
Freewriting is one of modest (well, secretly ambitious) efforts to grasp such serendipity. This is a kind of precious gift that the Muses of Creativity give us in celebrating our courage to start overcoming our writer's block. The Muses are always celebrating our very courage of starting anything. Once you've started, you are qualified to get such gifts one way or another.
If you believe "writing is thinking", then, you can actually love writing, which is basically very good. While majority of people (if I'm not mistaken) are not really fond of writing, if they can communicate through talking, then they feel they do not have to spend any extra time and effort for writing.
In my case, I am basically a believer of "writing is thinking"; the person who believes the power of writing. Even for communications, such person tends to believe that writing can make your communications deeper and more profound.
For any intellectual pursuits, writing is one of the basic and fundamental methods to do it. For example, the conclusion you wrote in your dissertation can be really "conclusive" mainly and crucially due to the process of your writing. This is especially true for the field of human sciences. As for natural sciences and partly for social sciences, perhaps the conclusion derived from the experiments, observations, and surveys would be more important. But even so, I think in the process of writing those "scientists" can still find a lot of deeper and valuable insights because of their very process of writing on the results at hand.
Recently, however, especially in the field of "business" it seems that such process of writing has been overlooked or even unvalued if I'm not mistaken or misunderstood.
I agree with the suggestions like "your email should be KISS (Keep it short, stupid! Or, Keep it simple and short) ". Some say your email should be maximum 5 lines; if more than 5, then you should use a phone call instead.
For, in the business world people are always very busy, they say. They are bombarded by tons of emails, so they do not have time to read your emails and reply to you. Use phone calls, chats, and twitters - whatever you can "chat" easily, instead of "dialogue" mindfully.
I completely agree with these suggestions from those well-known business life-hack gurus. If you write a novel-like longer email, then you look stupid, or you are actually. That is true. Perhaps I look stupid here and was stupid in writing longer and longer emails; believing the longer you write the more you can communicate well, profoundly, and sincerely.
Currently I am trying my best to keep my emails short (and hopefully not stupid!) and if anything complicated happened, I consider setting up a teleconference, or any non-writing method of communication.
While totally agreeing with these suggestions and trying my best efforts to apply them for my everyday business situations, I still believe that there must be the situation that we should really respect the process of writing and spend time to write longer in order to receive the special gifts from the Muses of Creativity.
Erasmus by Holbein
Our breathing should be deeper and if possible slower for us to conduct meditation so that we can sense the higher and deeper dimension of consciousness. Being a minimalist is not making things less, short, and shallow instantly, but seeing and understanding things more profoundly and removing unnecessary things from such higher and deeper perspective; this perspective is only what the Muses can provide us; and the Muses can show themselves to us only when we respect the process of writing.
Thank you!
Tom
Comments
Post a Comment