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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.

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