Please, Put It On Writing
Words are easily spoken.
And be swept by a gust of wind
So swiftly, and end nowhere…
Never reaching the ear,
To the one you intended,
Or bounce aimlessly,
And reach the wrong person.
If you write it instead,
Maybe one day, someone
May read it.
And the words
May grow like a seed,
Nurtured by a thirsty
Soul.
So, please write me
Even a line will suffice,
To who is in need of
Those words.
In truth, it may take
Some time,
Maybe centuries,
Before finding an echo,
And do not run into
The burning book crowd.
We need to say it,
So lets talk writing it,
To express what it’s hidden
And bring it out,
Since even you
May had ignored it.
Thoughts are difficult
To express with words,
In writing you can go back
And correct it,
But never so,
A word that incautiously
Left your Lips…
Let your fingers do the
Work for you.
They allow your heart,
To say what words would fail.
And bring the pleasure of
Accomplishment.
And who knows?
Maybe they will echo
On someone’s Heart.
The arrow of your
Thoughts, will score
A bull’s eye.
Then they will
Accomplish what these
Words were intended for.
B.A.
Why Introverts Like Writing, And Can Be very Good At.
To be honest, not all writers are introverts. Literary greats such as Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Anaïs Nin, and Mark Twain are thought to have been extroverts, but maybe they had some elements who they share with introverts.
But many Writers, Artist and Scientist, do self-identify as introverts, such as J.K. Rowling and John Green, Chopin, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton. Other famous introverted writers are thought to include Agatha Christie, Charlotte Brontë, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Homer, Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, George R.R. Martin, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss and… the list goes on and on.
Yes, anyone can write. But it takes a certain type of person to create worlds in their head, work in complete isolation for hours on end, and strive to get every word just right.
If you’re an introvert who loves writing, it’s probably in part because you get to work alone. There are no staff meetings, no small talk, no group brainstorming sessions, and no social burnout when you’re writing. It’s just you, your notebook, or laptop, and whatever your inner world devises.
Now, I also believe many of our fellow bloggers, who love to post, knowingly, or unknowingly they are attracted to read, and write, because it’s part of their inner drive, or character nature, from being an Introverted personality.
And that is why I titled my post as:
Writing is the Art, of bringing to Light, that what previously was Hidden within yourself.
The Passion Of Creation
And for that we first need to take the first steps , and start running, and to gain momentum jump over the fence, and realize we are who we are, writers at heart, and we can be as good as we work hard to polish ourselves, and perfect our skills.
I am not inclined to seek help, or look for advice from anyone, but there its nothing wrong with you, if you do that, my knowledge come from an early habit of reading, and an eclectic taste for it, only once I was taken to a beginner’s writer’s class by a friend, I was soon disappointed by the teacher when first thing he did was to ask us to write a small story, to a group of people who knew nothing about writing, and hardly ever read a book, I could tell, by their limited knowledge of authors, during the class. If I would have been the teacher, I rather have read them a small good story, and talk about it, instead than asking them to create anything, since they were not properly read, by a long stretch of the imagination, you have to hear some of the stuff they wrote, and sat patiently after to hear it, I do not know, even now, when remembering it, if to cry, or to laugh.
My advice then is to read a lot first, be voracious and read all kind of stuff. You will be surprised at the things I read, and write elsewhere, and not in my blog.
Of course each of us may have our own inclinations, given by many factors, too large to mention here, but the reason why, we all have different lives. But of course you got to be possessed by your inner whispering Daemon, as Socrates described it:
“Perhaps it may seem strange that I go about and interfere in other people’s affairs to give this advice in private, but do not venture to come before your assembly and advise the state. But the reason for this, as you have heard me say at many times and places, is that something divine and spiritual [“daemonic” in original text] comes to me…” (Plato, Socrates Apology: 31c.d.)
What to Write?
If your asking yourself this question, you are at the beginning of your Journey as a writer.
All writer’s have a story. Whatever we write is about us, or somehow related to our lives. As our taste in reading, and the daily events we live through, whatever you may write it should come from deep within your heart. Your story is also something which lies in your heart so mostly whatever people write is somehow related to them. Their personal Daemon, or demons may drive them, lets not forget the desperate souls that poured their angst, in writing.
Creative people its said are mainly extroverts, writing being a creative process, should have many extroverts, I sort of disagree with that way of thinking, recently someone said:
“Brainstorming builds on combination of ideas from multiple people, when ideas from one person are enhanced by another, leading to a product that none of the participants in the brainstorming session could have envisioned individually. In my personal experience, my best ideas came out when I was with other people. Even if they didn’t consciously contributed to them, even the fact that I had to explain my ideas to them made my original ideas better, and solved problems to which I didn’t have solutions before. Group brainstorming is hard on introverts, though. They would rather just be left alone to think, and thus will not benefit from thoughts of others.”
My answer to that is; you cannot be a real writer if you need to brainstorm with a group of people every time you write, sure you can get fresh ideas that way, but seating and writing, it’s a lonely time consuming process, that writers, inventors and engineers work like artists, and need to be alone, outside of their companies, or left alone when at work, where they can invent and write peacefully without others affecting them.
You want inspiration?
Seek it reading more books, and pondering if you could do it better.
One has to feel comfortable being alone, which is hard for most extroverted people, who find hard to sit by themselves for fifteen minutes in a room with no stimulation, and many of them preferred to zap them with electric shocks just to avoid feeling lonely, and bored, and to avoid thoughts they want to suppress. I guess that’s why jails were invented as punishment for those who break the law, we all humans, need a social environment, to be mentally healthy, but I imagine having to be worst for extroverts.
I know that to talk about psychological characters, it’s controversial, and not politically correct, with some philosophers, and scientist, but we all have an individual character, with preferences, and different choices, and we are compatible, or not with certain characters, and gathering with the wrong type, can end with you, like in a bad relationship, marriage, in trouble, by divorce, or mutual avoidance.
So is with writing, please if you never heard, or read Henry James, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Herman Melville, or Vladimir Nabokov, and those are the ones who provoke more essays to, be made by other writers, in America today. If your primary intent, isn’t the passion of the written word itself, but to be famous, or make money, do yourself a favor, and forget it! You are wasting your time, better become an actor, or a banker, instead.
When eating, we like to say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, in writing the proof is in the pleasure, awe, emotions, and esthetic satisfaction you get from reading it.
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El poema me pareció genial y a pesar de no ser Licenciado en Letras, puedo ver que lleva todo una referencia a lo que significa hacer una buena escritura. Me quedo con el final de tu entrada cuando das tu sentencia a los que pretenden ser escritores. So is with writing, please if you never heard, or read Henry James, William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Herman Melville, or Vladimir Nabokov, and those are the ones who provoke more essays to, be made by other writers, in America today. If your primary intent, isn’t the passion of the written word itself, but to be famous, or make money, do yourself a favor, and forget it! You are wasting your time, better become an actor, or a banker, instead.
Ha sido un placer leerte.
Thank you Manuel, we appreciate your words, and are pleased by them, we wish you plenty of inspiration to guide your pen, the stormy seas, of white pages, and women with pearly, or amber skin, their souls, thirsty for words of love, and long gently kisses. 🙂
Caution. Profound thoughts zone in this blog post. Well done. Introvertedly yours, Pat
Thank you for your encouraging words Pat, we really appreciate them. 🙂
Un bellissimo articolo e un’analisi molto approfondita.
Tuttavia si può scrivere senza essere scrittore, solo per il piacere di lasciare per sé un ricordo concreto di sentimenti e pensieri con modalità quasi naif: non pennellate di colore ma parole.
Il problema di oggi del passaggio carweb è che troppi si sono improvvisati e si sentono scrittore Mi fa molto pena per loro.
Shera
Il mio commento nella traduzione è stato completamente stravolto.
Intendevo dire che non necessariamente si deve desiderare o imparare ad essere scrittori ma quello che conta veramente è memorizzare per se stessi le proprie emozioni passate e presenti.
Il web è diventato una vetrina dove ognuno vuole essere applaudito e dunque Io ho appena per la loro debacle.
Shera
Non ti preoccupare cara, so che è difficile da tradurre, ma il significato si incontra, e possiamo capire cosa intendi.
In effetti, tutti noi, abbiamo il diritto di scrivere, se lo desideriamo.
In spagnolo ci piace dire:
Come musicista, poeta e pazzo, abbiamo qualcosa.
Quanto possiamo essere bravi?
Bene, è tutta un’altra questione.
E dovremmo essere consapevoli di questo e dei nostri limiti.
Allo stesso tempo, i nostri limiti, devono essere una sfida per noi per essere migliori.
Nell’arte, della scrittura e in generale in tutti gli aspetti della vita, dobbiamo lottare per diventare migliori.
Grazie cara Sherazade, per il tuo commento, lo apprezziamo molto. 🙂
ecco lottare/fight NON mi piace: nell arte penso a leggerezza e gioia… se hai un talento che vuoi sviluppare allora devi lottare per il meglio.
Ciao da Roma. ☔☂️☔☂️😫
Oh! Cara Sherazade, ricorda il proverbio italiano; traduttore, traditore!
Ciao, e baci 🙂
Thank you so much Ciao e baci a te!!!
Excelente entrada, mi admirado amigo. Se merece una muy atenta relectura. Saludos y buen fin de semana. 🙂
Gracias, se agradece tu comentario. 🙂
🙏🏻
Thank you, blessings! 🙂
Facts – well-written.
Thank you very much, we appreciate it. 🙂
A great post to be pondered upon by green authors…especially indie ones. Great job, dear Mr. Brigido!
Thank you Maria, love of the written word, in our now so commercialized, and crass World, and with such poor environment, for developing culture, and wisdom, and who focus on all the wrong reasons to write, they just bring us into a deplorable state of affairs, regarding the subject of literature, with few exceptions.
We can only hope things will get better…
Thank you for your comment Maria, its always appreciated. 🙂
You are right, dear Mr. Brigido. It seems they want to destroy literature, especially the American Indie movement. I agree that there are precious gems everywhere, but!!! there is so much trash! too much!
With few words you express it very clearly Maria, yes they are exceptions, but so much trash.
There’s little reflection by many, before they launch themselves, into writing, and what is worst in my opinion, little, or no preparation, into something so essential, as reading plenty of the good stuff.
As an anecdote, I have acquaintances, who know of my love of reading, and some have approached me with their manuscripts, mainly movie scripts, who they believe they would do a wonderful movie…
Of course, they are not worth even a second reading, a bad compost from other movies, who in my opinion were not even good!
And worst, I have people who wanted to hire me as a writer, to write for them their own book, my response, has been:
“If you have such great book idea, why do not write it yourself?”
You have to see their faces, and the excuses they come with.
I just add:
“Precisely, you are not a writer, become one if you wish to do so, I hardly have time to write my own ideas, even less for yours.”
Or as Pliny’s Apelles the great Greek painter response to the cobbler’s criticism, the famous ultracrepidarian:
‘Let the cobbler stick to his last’
Thank you Maria. 🙂
I fully share all your expressed thought, dear Mr. Brigido. While I was searching a publishing house for my own book, (if things run well, we will finally publish it in 2019) I found out that editors too are not of much interested in the intellectual stuff. But to write for somebody – what a horrible idea! Have a nice reading weekend!
Good luck on your book Maria!
Unfortunately most editors, are not concerned with the quality of a book, but what profits will bring to their money hungry pockets, they are misers. 😦
Thanks, dear Mr. Brigido. The book is in English, by the way. I will send you a copy as soon as we have made it. Well…the problem is the market laws. In Europe, in my case, in Italy, money is the power. Italians publish less rubbish, but they charge well. What to do! Our capitalistic world! We cannot avoid it.
I will love to receive your book dear Maria.
Yes, wherever money it’s a priority, you can bet injustice follow it close by.
And the reason many writers prefer to publish their own books, the problem with that, you are not only the writer, but have to become by force the salesman of your own work. 😦
Ha-ha-ha! So true! That’s what I’m preparing to no matter that the true artist is only an artist! 🙂
Unfortunately so, now day the artist has to be a salesman too, or his work will remain unknown. 😦
And what about you? You must have published plenty of interesting essays & articles. Any books of your own?
Honestly, I had never give too much thought to write a book, first of all, consider myself too eclectic, (read, dispersed all over) and therefore unwilling to commit myself to a particular subject, in any case maybe a collection of my essays, or short stories, will see, in any case it will better be suited, in the odd chance someone after reading me, should decide to do so, or approach me with a proposal, however I see that as very unlikely.
As mentioned before, most people we are ego centered, and if someone decide I am a good writer, they may contact me not to publish me, but to ask me to write something under their own name.
As it has happen to me before. 😦
PS. I still wonder why rubbish books are sold better…or maybe this is only an impression?
No dear Maria you are right on the money, as they like to say over here, so the publishers themselves, unfortunately, they care little about quality but more about quantity of books they could sell, and in a way, you cannot blame them, their mission it’s to sell books, not to shape the good taste in reading of the average person.
Therefore in Democracies, it’s the lowest common denominator, that always win, not the higher, which usually it´s small.
🙂
When I wrote your post about writing and writers “The Ghost writer” by Philip Roth came to my mind. A young writer, Nathan Zuckerman, goes to find the famous writer Lonoff. In the course of the book, the reader learns that Mr. Lonoff has no life apart from his craft, from turning around and around sentences which have become utterly boring and a waste of time to him! This is most sad and I hope it is the exception!
During my life I have highly enjoyed books by most of the writers you mentioned.
Very many thanks for this inspiring article.:) All the best Martina
Well, Martina, I had people told me to my face when they find me reading:
“Why do you waste your time reading?”
My response would vary according to the person, but mainly would tell them, it was my own business to spend my time into what I care for, just like I do not tell them what kind of business they should pursue, neither I was concerned to what dubious profit, or benefit they would get from it.
To each his own.
Never read The Ghost Writer from Roth, so I cannot tell his point, but life is wasted in a million different ways, may as well waste it doing something you enjoy, and have no regrets.
Thank you Martina, for your comment, sorry for my lateness, but distracted by life in other business. 🙂
I very much like your point of view as far as wasting time for things one likes or is passionate about is concerned!:) Many thankgs for your answer and have a day according to your wishes. Best regards Martina
Thank you Martina, best regards. 🙂
Excellent!
Thank you Don, we appreciate it your comment! 🙂
I must be an introvert. I enjoy quiet times, working alone . . . and writing!
Yes Introverted people we like peace, and tranquil environments, and to read, and write.
If you want to read more on the subject you can go to:
https://konekrusoskronos.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/letter-to-a-friend-about-montaigne-writing-and-other-matters/
Thank you Priscilla, we appreciate your comment. 🙂
Ah ! l’écriture !…. mystère poïétique, surgissement hors de soi de plus que soi.
Cher ami, j’ai envie ici de vous laisser une citation tirée de mon auteur favori qui ne me quitte plus vraiment depuis mes 20 ans.
“Les jeunes écrivains qui, parlant d’un jeune confrère avec un accent mêlé d’envie, disent : «C’est un beau début, il a eu un fier bonheur !» ne réfléchissent pas que tout début a toujours été précédé et qu’il est l’effet de vingt autres débuts qu’ils n’ont pas connus.”
Charles Baudelaire in “Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs”.
En bref, on n’en finit pas de débuter. L’écriture, c’est l’éternel recommencement.
Amitiés.
M.
Merci pour votre belle citation de Charles Baudelaire, c’est un trésor.
Nous apprécions un tel commentaire. 🙂
It’s so nice to come in contact with someone who makes me feel like maybe I’m NOT that crazy for wanting to be alone when I write so I can focus and pull things out of the peaceful silence. My husband is a screenwriter, so the brainstorming is constant and endless, and he always touts the *teamwork* aspect of movie-making, all its working parts and myriad details, while being somewhat contemptuous of us who “all you have to do is write alone, work alone, then send it off to a publisher.” And this coming from someone who actually doesn’t mind his own company or being alone, so I’m not even sure where the hostility is coming from, lol !!
But thank you. Well said.
Well, my point on the post is not to denigrate any form of writing, or put introverts vs extroverts, against each other throats, to argue about writing.
Screenwriter it’s a demanding job, because of the money invested on a movie, you need to cater to a whole team of people, not necessarily writers themselves, and people who are paying you not to write a literary masterpiece work, but a successful movie at the box office.
So the needs are different, as an example not even Nobel price winner Harold Pinter could make a second remake of Sleuth (2007) a successful movie, it did poorly at the box office an most critics ripped it apart.
A movie can be successful with little writing, and with hardly a dialog, try to do that with a book, they are two different beasts, and cannot fairly be compared.
Unfortunately for book readers, movies have been so successful that many writers of novels, rather write a novel that can easily be turned into a movie, affecting the style, and quality of the novel itself. Something that by the way commented on a past post.
But just because many people love movies, including myself, it doesn’t mean as a reader, I prefer to read poorly written books, that may pass as literature, to people whose taste on reading books its limited, or particular to specific subjects, were quality writing it’s not important, as opposed to good writing, as an artistic effort, to be consider as literary.
There is writers who work for all kinds of business, science, law, or industry, because their work it’s necessary, even to write a manual on how to operate the new electronic gadget you may get, even if most people never read them, or understand.
Writing it’s a necessary skill for all of us, but used in many different ways, not for our literary enjoyment.
Now I am not want to preach to the choir, about stuff that it should be clear, or obvious to many, but I am extending myself here for those people who may have a poor understanding of the issue, I am talking about. So please I apologize at the length of my response.
We are all different, and face diverse circumstances, personally I enjoy peace and tranquility, not so much when reading, I had trained myself to read in the middle of a crowd like in a bus, disconnecting myself from the noise, and activity, focusing on the book, but never tried writing, that I do in perfect solitude, and peace.
I thank you sincerely for commenting on the issue. 🙂
Thank you, Burning Heart. Yeah, the denigrating of writing styles and pitting of introverts against extroverts is all my spouse and not you at all. And you’re right–the difference between novel or short story writing compared to screenwriting couldn’t be any huger: they’re different worlds with vastly different outcomes. I think he’s kind of joking…but, you know, “not” joking deep down. And in the end, the whole point for both of us is to create something that others will enjoy, so that’s where our nexus is. And it’s true–many things have risen to the surface for both of us during certain projects that had been either buried, repressed, hidden, or just ignored. 🙂
Well, you know him better, but maybe he has an stressful job and he needs some sort of recognition, and his jokes are a passive, aggressive, way to ask for it, in a marriage conciliation, and not competition, its the way to go. 🙂
My apologies for taking so long to return to this excellent article in order to leave a comment. I don’t actually spend much time electronically connected. And I’ve been listening to an elderly Japanese narrative over the last few weeks with the intent that the story and its perspective should be recorded in English. It’s been a revealing experience with regard to cultural objectivity, since I’m hearing the other side of something that has been written about from what I’ve concluded was a privileged and perhaps misogynistic, American-male perspective.
As neither an introvert, nor a serious writer, my work here is mostly just a way to sort through some of my own thoughts, or to throw out an occasional idea and see what happens. Regardless, a lifetime of reading reveals that little if anything of my own “profound” thoughts haven’t already been pondered by others, often far more intelligent and informed than myself. So I strongly agree that having something worthy of saying first requires having consumed a wide range of others’ ideas worthy of repeating. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe asserted, “Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.”
Perhaps it’s a cultural or generational difference… I don’t really know. The environment in which I was matured seemed to have had an expectation that one would learn of that which came before, primarily though written language. I can’t imagine having gone through my youth without books… stories and literature, philosophy and science, history and mythology… And as an adult, I still find great value in widely divergent book lists. My only regret is that I didn’t learn to read well in a second language when I was younger.
At any rate, I sincerely appreciate your own considered and obviously well-informed comments. And I wish you much beauty. 🙂
Well I don’t know how extroverted you may be, by the way you travel, and you do things, it looks that way, but also it seems you have great skills in telling your stories, and a literary bent, if you take the trouble of reading such a classic as Goethe, a writer that maybe a lot of people may talk about, but few ever really reads.
Myself have a wonderful edition of three volumes of his full works, but I confess, have not gone through the whole thing, however I always remember the advice of Herman Hesse, when reading Dostoevsky, he felt like emotionally spent by his barbaric way he played with your feelings, his heart full of pain, but then I will seek Goethe to soothe me and bring me into a peaceful mood, with his crystal clear, soothing waters.
Now do not quote me, on it, I remember it more or less that way he his telling it, and pick Goethe from time, to time when I am in need of such peaceful mood.
For which I suspect you may have an introverted strain on you.
Or as Hesse express it, a sort of enantidromia, opposite character may touch at the extremes, personally being very Introverted have many friends totally extroverted, and we mutually enjoy our company, however cannot travel together, they exhaust me, and I believe I have talked to you in the past about it.
Herman Hesse when he talks about the different types of reader, he says at one point:
“The third and last type of reader … is apparently the exact reverse of what is generally called a “good” reader. He is so completely an individual, so very much himself, that he confronts his reading matter with complete freedom. He wishes neither to educate nor to entertain himself, he uses a book exactly like any other object in the world, for him it is simply a point of departure and a stimulus. Essentially it makes no difference to him what he reads. He does not need a philosopher in order to learn from him, to adopt his teaching, or to attack or criticize him. He does not read a poet to accept his interpretation of the world; he interprets it for himself. He is, if you like, completely a child. He plays with everything — and from one point of view there is nothing more fruitful and rewarding than to play with everything. If this reader finds a beautiful sentence in a book, a truth, a word of wisdom, he begins by experimentally turning it upside down.
In a sentiment which Nobel-winning physicist Frank Wilczek would come to echo nearly a century later in his assertion that “you can recognize a deep truth by the feature that its opposite is also a deep truth,” Hesse adds:
[This reader] has known for a long time that for each truth the opposite also is true. He has known for a long time that every intellectual point of view is a pole to which an equally valid antipole exists. He is a child insofar as he puts a high value on associative thinking, but he knows the other sort as well.”
Well, in any case, on my love of books, and in my Introversion, I am happy to make my living around them, and pity as poor souls, those those who do not pick a book even to use it as a door stop, or throw it on somebody’s head, just by the fact they do not posses one at hand.
As an anecdote, when ever I visit a home for the first time, I can tell if I will have an affinity to the person, or family by the amount, and the kind of books, they may have.
Many times I have being disappointed, at the lack of books in the house, or their little value, by the titles they own.
Now this is not a judgment on their good hearts they may posses, and their friendship , just I can tell it will be useless to talk, about the themes I love, selfish perhaps, on my part, but I have learnt to accept people for who they are, rather than for what I will desire them to be, and when in Rome do as the Romans do, however not for too long, as an introvert it drains my energy.
Please do not feel obligated to comment, or apologize for it, we are all busy specially if you blog, and understand that some issues may not seem of particular interests to us.
I thank you, and appreciate your comment very much. 🙂
Oh! I must reply to this, if for no other reason than to communicate my smiling expression, despite having to admit that I’ve never read any Hesse (an oversight I must correct!). But I suppose the reality is that most people are actually varying combinations of Yin and Yang. And if I am honest with myself, then I am perhaps a bit of a pendulum, simply enjoying whatever emerges through the motions between territories of experience, pausing only briefly at the extremes. I’ve noted before that I run (as I read) intentionally without electronic devices, as it’s my time of self-focus while engaging with my surroundings. Often, ideas I’ve written about here have emerged during those kind of moments. And long flights can amount to a sort of forced meditation on the likes of Dostoevsky (or perhaps Solzhenitsyn in economy).
I was raised within a rather “old-school” environment where a liberal education was mandatory for girls. Therein I’ll confess that much of my turn toward science and mathematics was as a reaction to what I perceived as being academically painted into a corner. A high school senior-year conflict regarding completing my mandatory French Language classes would be countered by creating an all-female literature group where we read such as Dostoevsky, Pushkin… and Solzhenitsyn. Alas, Goethe wouldn’t be discovered until university, after a professor encouraged a primary source assignment involving a selection of his letters. Nowadays, I’m all over the place, though with less fiction… currently absorbing Rehman Rashid’s, “A Malaysian Journey” (a well-used volume that upon opening frames its text within the faint, Asian essence of tropically fermented paper).
I wish that I could say that I kept my family’s library, but circumstance allowed only a portion onto my own shelves. My father was able to speak, read and write in Japanese, German and English, and was fascinated by British, American and Russian history. And my mother was a translator and interpreter with a natural ability to acquire languages. She possessed many books of great personal value to herself that I could never read, much less fathom their meanings. This is part of what’s inspired my current endeavor here in Japan, an effort to record in English a personal history that was trivialized in Western accounts, I suspect, due to some degree of uninformed interpretation. It’s turned out to be a far more complex, human, ironically tragic and socially delicate story than I had imagined. And I’ve had to commit myself to reading some associated Japanese contemporary histories (in Japanese) in order to better understand the context of what I’m hearing — a rather daunting task for me.
Hopefully, I won’t simply reveal myself as among those “third” readers.
Much good cheer to you! 🙂
There’s not easier way to catch my attention, than hearing someone mentioning a book, or author that I am not familiar, with.
And even more if I find the book suits my taste.
So I went and check the book, and author you are reading, and find out:
Writer, filmmaker, and publisher Amir Muhammad, who first met Rehman while he was writing his famed column, Scorpion Tales, in the New Straits Times, said he would always remember Rehman as a larger than life figure, whose love for the written word and love for the country were not only genuine, but inexorably intertwined.
“Many of us younger writers were in awe of his wit, erudition and, of course, awesome vocabulary. We kept in touch over the decades but I don’t suppose I ever got over that initial sense of awe. He made writing about Malaysia seem like a swashbuckling adventure,” Amir said.”
And many other like comments, and adding to your words:
“(a well-used volume that upon opening frames its text within the faint, Asian essence of tropically fermented paper).”
Add to the romance of it, I do not read tablets, like to feel a book, and rather buy a book edition more expensive, of the same book if the book respond to my sense of aesthetics, and has the sensuality of touch, and smell to it, good quality paper adds sensual delight, to the pleasure of reading great words, a whole experience, rather than just an utilitarian end.
As you mentioned just a few days ago I was commenting to some people at a lunch, how important it’s the surrounding and family environment we grew up, to influence our habits, likes and dislikes.
My father a man mainly self taught, but influenced by his mother, a schoolteacher, possessed a somewhat medium, but considerable library, a large bookshelf, filled with all sorts of books, plus several boxes of books in a room of the house, he gave me my first book to read when I just learnt how to read at the age of five years old. I have talked about in a past post.
Needless to say I went through most of the books by the time I was twelve, and decided to learn English then, since father possessed many titles in English that I was unable to read, he got me a book, that had escaped my attention, before, it was an old English method Theodore Robertson – 1847. It took me three lessons, only for me, and with the help of a dictionary to start reading father’s English books.
By the way, a most unusual book that taught you using a Turkish tale, that start as follows:
“We are told that the sultan Mahmoud, by his perpetual wars abroad and his tyranny at home, had filled his dominions with ruin and desolation, and had unpeople the Persian empire.”
I can still quote those lessons by memory, despite so many years, I kept that book with me until some one stole it from my apartment, with a few other books when in my early twenties.
And not being able to find it anywhere, but as an English method for German speaking people online, so far.
Plus from then on, Father will indulge me, taking me with him to the local bookstore, and always buying me a book of my choice.
And I will even save my money to buy my own books, do not remember of buying anything else but books with my savings, at the time.
My two brothers not as avid readers, and somewhat more extroverted than me, also if later in life got into reading as well.
But not some of my own children who didn’t grew up with me, because, of divorce.
So I gather the importance of a family ambiance, where books are important.
Sorry for my digressions, and long response, I get carried away.
Thank you for your nice response. 🙂
had to write
i like what
you’ve written 🙂
I am glad you did, we really appreciate it.
Thank you. 🙂
Aye! Ideas flow more freely when there are less distractions. 🍸
Totally agree, and we thank you for you to comment, on it.
“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. 🙂
Reblogged this on ReBirth: The Pursuit of Porsha.
Thank you Porscha, we are very grateful for your generosity. 🙂 ❤️
Hi, Your article is perfect except for the typo in the title. I spend my life fighting typos.
Thanks dear, I get sloppy at checking things up.
This is good inspiration for writing.
I am glad you think so, thank for your comment. 🙂
Reblogged this on Szwedzka Polka and commented:
Ten wpis dedykuję wszystkim blogowiczom. Jest w nim wiele mądrości, refleksji i uwag na temat ubierania myśli w słowa. Owocnego czytania!
Cieszę się, że ci się podobało, dziękuję!
Yes, we bloggers love the written word, otherwise we wouldn’t do it, also wanted to comment it takes courage to write, and expose ourselves to criticism. 🙂
Excellent! 🙂 A toast to all the introverted writers!!
Thank you Jean-Jacques, we appreciate it. 🙂
.. and sort of self-discovery, too! Realistically, we can find time and we can find the subject, it is just a question whether we want for real or not.
Always pleasure reading your posts!
Yes, you are right.
Thank you for your comment Inese, its appreciated. 🙂