Writing to improve
Inspired by Celine Nguyen (and Jackson, by way of his recommendation), I’m back in the game.
This isn’t a New Year’s Resolution, though I would like to post semi-regularly. There’s no material goal, though it would be fun to have a readership. There is an intrinsic goal, though: I want to be a better thinker.
For a little while now, I’ve felt a shallowness in my thinking. Chalk it up to any number of factors:
more time where my mind is engaged in simply keeping the kids alive (or at least not getting permanent stains on the couch)
less time “doing nothing” (due to more time being “busy” with podcasts / Wordle / Spark / movies / etc / etc)
few opportunities for deep conversation in daily life (or a lack of my trying to make deep conversations happen)
general stability in life (I’ve got a house, happy marriage, healthy kids… why rock the boat with thinking?)
While I wouldn’t say I move about life aimlessly, I often feel unmoored. Without a center, or a foundation to stand on. If pressed, I don’t know if I could satisfactorily justify why I do what I do; how I parent the way I parent; why I teach what/how I teach; what the meaning is behind really any of my actions aside from “I usually do it this way” or “this action is the one that makes me/others feel best.” I don’t think I’m a Westworld-style automaton, but too often I feel as if I’m acting out a script, or just being pulled along by outside forces. I want to connect with the world, with others, with myself, from a place of security and assuredness.
Maybe not coincidentally, I have been drawn recently to philosophical and spiritual traditions—some familiar, some not. Some that are familiar but repackaged in such a way that I hardly recognize what I thought I would see. Perhaps ironically, in an attempt to think more deeply for myself, I realize that to try to find answers to life’s biggest questions within myself is a fool’s errand. As far as a source for wisdom goes, I’m a poor fount. With 32 paltry years under my belt, having visited only four countries, and having interacted with a fraction of humans who have ever lived that is so small as to be negligible, to assume that I will stumble upon wisdom and truth in my own thought life is laughable.
My lived experience is a minuscule sliver of reality, of course, but it is all I have to go on. And in my experience, relying on the wisdom of established doctrine and philosophy provides me a far stronger foundation than trying to figure everything out for myself. This may seem like a cop-out, like mental laziness, but again—in my experience—I feel much better entering into interactions with my family, my students, and strangers, when I base my beliefs, values, and actions upon established wisdom.
Where I am still unclear is whether there needs to be some sort of merger between this institutional wisdom and my own experience, or instead a surrendering to a truth/reality/doctrine that is outside of/above/beyond myself. Do I create a synthesis of personal wisdom, or adopt a framework wholesale?
I don’t know yet, but I’m pretty sure I won’t make much progress in any direction if I don’t write. Without writing, I am essentially living life on others’ terms, or else being yanked through my days by a combination of desires, fears, and instinct. Writing is a space of conscious, active, reflective creation. I am building something here, even if I don’t know what it is.
[There is a 33 Before 33 list forthcoming, but the priority for me right now is to publish. The List is soon to follow.]
Until next time,
Kurt