Writing My Way to Understanding.

The devil himself always seems to get into my inkstand, and I can only exorcise him by pensful at a time." - Nathanial Hawthorne

The activity of articulating my thoughts in words is an interesting process of dividing my thoughts from my emotions. The power of the mind to play out entire dramatic renditions of events of your recent or distant past is what makes us humans rather unique. Perhaps other creatures here on Earth have similar things going on in their minds, but I can't find evidence of it. My cat doesn't treat me any differently depending on its recent daydream of my previous treatment of it. This is true of other people though. I do it all the time.

The process to take these dramatic renditions and write them down is both a challenge and a joy. As I work through various events in my work life and try to understand them, I find that the emotion rich environment of my mind can lead to greater drama but less understanding.

In theatre, any play I ever worked on started with some form of a script. From the script I developed a character and built an entire set of fictitious memories to create the illusion of a real life for the character I was portraying. In a funny way, it is very similar to the implanted memories that the Tyrell Corporation put into the cyborg minds of the androids they built in "Blade Runner." By taking these memories off the page and into my head, I was creating an emotionally rich environment for my character.

Writing is the opposite of this. The process of dismantling the emotional landscape from the story and just simply stating the story as I perceived it, gave me to opportunity to reflect and analyze my perceptions that would be nearly impossible in my head. Now my perceptions were separated from the emotions and I could look at these perceptions with a clear eye and find the flaws, gaps in logic, and just plain unfair judgment. Or, I would discover that maybe I was correct in my perception and I needed to look at others around me and do an analysis of them. Ultimately, this process of writing the story helped me find my way to understanding.

Why is this so important to me? I guess because I pride myself on being fair, reasonable, kind, forgiving and understanding. I personally believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This belief is something that is at the core of who I am and how I live my life. So, of course, when I am presented with a person to person challenge, I go into high gear on the analysis. I work hard at finding a common ground. I don't always succeed, but I give it everything I've got.

The devil in my inkstand is my emotional nature and how it can get the better of me. I despise being taken advantage of. I despise seeing others being taken advantage of. I like a good competition when it is played fair and everyone can shake hands at the end. I like to trust my team and I like my team trusting me. I believe that when you get to the top of the mountain you climb down and help others up. I hated the King of the Mountain game as a kid. I played it, but I felt kinda lonely when I was on the top. I wasn't a sissy. I played water polo and lacrosse and rugby...

The point is that we can't rely on our emotionally charged mind to present us with an accurate picture of what is happening in our lives. Ours perceptions are coloured by our emotions. Theatre has been telling the same stories over and over for millennia. Why do we still enjoy them? Because we enjoy the emotional journey. That is what makes us human.

For me, writing is my way of finding understanding. What's your way?

OB