Oswald Chambers talks about the dangers of "morbid introspection."
The way that sometimes the sound of the life of the mind can produce clouds of vaporous acid rain.
I'm a Writer.
Morbid Introspect is the encyclopedic definition.
Speaking on Chambers' behalf, I am not under the impression that he's thinking "morbid" as in fantasies involving the death of loved ones, but rather getting so caught up in one's mind that you forget to participate in anything else.
Don't mind my pronoun-antecedent error in that last line.
To a certain extent, I have to disagree with Chambers.
Without writing and without a regular dose of morbid introspection by which I process the world in me and the world around me, I cease to be able to engage with the world around me. Derek Mahon would call it a case of "cloud thoughts."
My gaze gets hazy, and I say and do things that aren't me. Because I'm not thinking, I'm living. I have a lot of friends who are so thoughtless. They GO and ACT and DO and so many people respect and admire them for this, but all it does is make me a little sad.
Yes, for a while I'm jealous of them (as I am also a little jealous of the GOACTDO Jamie when I'm not her), but then I can't help but to think that they go and act and do without really knowing why. And that makes me sad.
Too much in the head kills you but too little in the head causes a build-up...and kills you.
I call for a balance, for the freedom to pro-con list and journal about your feelings and fears but also with a mighty spill-in of risk and spontaneity and glitter.
The ideal is a mix: outrospection with an understanding of why you do what you do.
In that way, you would be able to keep yourself fun and tender-hearted but not so self-absorbed that you become selfish and forgetful of the needs of those around you.
Along a similar line, as a writer, I also know that we have a tendency to record only that which requires meditation.
But when you go back and read later, you may forget all the periods of great fun in-between the "deep" times.
Any writer can ink a sob story all over a page.
It takes great skill and discipline to write well about joy.
Record all of it.
Remember all of it.
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