I try to impress upon my students that writing is accompanied by great responsibility. The responsibility is grounded in the act of creation. It's grounded in bringing reality into being.
Writing should not be taken lightly. Anyone who reads a piece of writing, whatever its is, a blog post or anything else, must realize that each word, followed by each next word, builds a reality. These words bring reality into being.
Creation myths look at the creation of the world this way: words spoken, one by one,and with each word, aspects of the world come into being.
Writers are similarly creators of reality, of worlds, whether worlds of thought, worlds of story, worlds of insight, worlds of satire, worlds of facetiousness, etc.
Therefore, the writer has to ask this question: is this the reality I want to create? Is the tone the tone I want to create? Is the thinking detailed enough to be understood? Are the details plentiful enough so that the world I'm creating can be entered into and understood? Is this a partial world, difficult to understand? Or have I written or created a full world, understandable, a world that a person unfamiliar with me can enter into and know what's happening?
Does my creation tell the truth? Is it accurate?
Am I conversant with enough vocabulary to be accurate?
Am I awake?
I love the little story my sister told
here. She called it paying attention. I call it being awake. She brought the reality of two swans swimming by Barnaby Island into being. She did the same with an eagle: likewise two deer.
Without her alertness and without her words, the swans and eagle and deer would not exist as far as we are concerned. My sister created them, brought them into being. She accepted the responsibility of making these moments of beauty known to us and convey them as truthfully and as accurately as language allows.
We tell stories. We tell stories about ourselves. We tell stories about others. These stories are our reality. Change the story and the reality changes.
My, what a profound responsibility we have when we tell stories, when we decide what stories we are going to live by.
These stories we create about others and about ourselves and the language we use to tell these stories to others have great power. They have the power of a created reality. If we want to significantly change things about ourselves or our regard for others, the first thing we have to change is the stories we live by regarding others and ourselves.
Inland Empire Girls' story is about much more than wildlife sightings. Hers is a story about a distracted mind, about a woman who tells herself a story that says she's distracted.
But, she changes that story and the new story says she is a woman who pays attention, who is awake and, miraculously, she tells us a story that brings an eagle, two swans, and two deer into being.
What a deeply moral exercise of her creative responsibility! What a profound story! What a generous use of language so that we can experience that moment!
Without my sister being awake, those inspiring animals would have gone unnoticed, and, as far as we are concerned, would have never existed. In our alertness to the world around us, we have the power to bring that world to life.
We are creators, not just recorders, not just reporters of our worlds. It's a deep responsibility.
