Audience of Every-one

A few issues back in my newsletter I had mentioned one of eight tenet's on writing by Kurt Vonnegut:

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. - Kurt Vonnegut

I've just started reading the mesmerizing 'Letters From a Stoic' by the philosopher Seneca (letters written between 63 A.D to 65 A.D) It was interesting to find that Kurt Vonnegut's thoughts on the matter have roots in Stoic thinking.

Seneca mentions these Epicurean lines in the letter:

I am writing this not for the eyes of the many, but for yours alone: for each of us is audience enough for the other - Epicurus

Be it Seneca writing to Lucilius, Rilke to Franz Kappus or Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, there is an immediacy and a force to these writings and we instantly become their recipient. And in the strange case of Kafka, most of his stories were likely written for the audience of none but himself.

In the particular lies the universe:

“For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.” - James Joyce

And if one person can truly get to the heart of an audience of one (or his own), that creation can get to the heart of many individuals.

As a learning from Kafka, the urge to create is to put an order to one's life. It is a constant endeavor against the never-ending pull of entropy that threatens life into chaos. Like constantly pushing brakes on the declining path towards disintegration, creative endeavors slow down life to a pace where it can be cherished.

When we create, we try to find a rhythm in the madness, a beat or a tune from all the varied sounds that exist, to ride the tide away from entropy, for just a bit, and to have a few more ride along with us.

To Tread, to listen, to be calm

The phrase 'no fight left in me' recently struck me as lacking meaning. To fight, to struggle, to confront, to act against -- as if it is all there is to life, as if it makes people 'succeed'.

Swimming has taught me something different. Swimming has taught me to be calm. To accept, to listen, to see and to find a way. To not create splashes that are bound to make you sink, to not fight but to allow things to happen and enter what surrounds you. To be tense is to try forcing your way, to be tense is to die.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. - Bruce Lee

And in those things that are disclosed, there are ways far beyond what a closed mind can imagine. To be assertive is lauded in our society but it also means to be rigid and deaf to outward things.

"It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig........ Lightly, lightly – it's the best advice ever given me... So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly." - Aldous Huxley

Should I be Worried?

Kiki (our cat) is sitting on the porch, theres a beautiful bounced sunlight hitting her chin and a gentle breeze is blowing through her fur. For the next 20 mins or so the world will still be beautiful and hopefully non-disastrous, maybe for the next 20 hours, maybe for the next 20 days - I don’t know.

But knowing that 'X' is happening in the world, should I be worried?

(X= name your poison)

I came across the book 'What Should We Be Worried About?' that asks some of the brightest minds in the world about their worries. I marveled at the idea of the book itself! Everyone is always worried about something and can write volumes about it. One of my favorite authors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi seemed to eventually decide randomly on one worry since there were so many.

'I tried to rank my fears in order of their severity, but soon I realized I would not complete this initial task before the submission deadline, so I decided to use a random number generator to choose among the fears.' - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

But isn't worrying itself a worry? That we know so much, that we care so much and that we want so much to go in the ‘right’ way?

Kiki played with a broken leaf while enjoying the sun's warmth. The sun has been making its way on and off today through the clouds. The breeze continues to animate the leaves all around the house. Sunlight dances through the window and the gaps of the roof. Will life have disasters ahead, unhappiness, trauma, sadness, pain? I don't know.

But I know that, worrying will take me from here to there. A there that doesn't exist yet and might not exist at all. And in this beautiful painting of today, I would have smeared the black paint of my worries that only signifies the unknown, no matter what shape I try to find in it.

And from the same book I read:

I've given up worrying. I merely float on a tsunami of acceptance of anything life throws at me....and marvel stupidly. - Terry Gilliam

Worry Etymology

c. 1300, wirien, "to slay, kill or injure by biting and shaking the throat" (as a dog or wolf does), from Old English wyrgan "to strangle,"