In answering a question I recieved recently, I write the following letter. I have experienced you as an intelligent human being. Thus I avoid spelling out a solution in straight language. After all, a core thing in writing is ”show not tell”. So here it comes:
Some humans have a rich and sensitive interior. They could not survive without a ”turtle shell” protecting their interior. You can build such a shell by using a lot of bricks made out of ”mental stuff”. Each brick is a thought you construct in order to improve yourself as human. You fasten one thought to other thoughts using ”logic”. The result is that you may become filled with ambition. You feel a need for being more clever, smarter, better doing the things you think is right. Or you might even stretch yourself in doing what you have heard is the right thing to do. Behind building yourself such a shell might be an early event when you though your personal core was attacked or questioned. You may have an experience of feeling hurt or wounded. After many years, I have found that this might be the case for me.
When we write such a shell may turn into a jail. Most certainly we will experience a jail if we want our writing to come from our sensitive core. We may select an action strategy where we separate writing from what our personality needs. We may easily act this way as our surrounding society tells us to think that way. And they do it in big letters. Following this approach, we regard writing as a technology/method or a craftsmanship. It has nothing to do with our personality.
When writing the above lines, I suddenly realised I could as well argue the other way around. What I mean is that until now I have found that I mix writing with an urge for personal development. My texts are self-reflective up to the point of boredom and beyond. I have judged myself as doing the wrong thing following that approach. And I question myself; I thought of myself as an inadequate writer. But starting just now my perspective is changed. Mixing writing and personal development might be the right thing for me to do. It might turn out to be a way to reduce or dissolve my shell. Maybe this way is the only one that is within my reach.
Your friend in writing / Göran Stille
Göran Stille 