I spend a lot of my time in introspection and have done so for much of my life. Having that inner conversation may be one way to consider being connected to oneself. Yet while I do it a lot some of these conversations don't really draw me in. They are more chatter than anything else, time fillers, nothing more. There are other conversations that are more gripping, some of which result in writing a blog post like this one. But still, they seemingly are products of the conscious mind only. Some years back I read On Not Being Able To Paint and it was an eye opener for me. Milner explains that often the conscious self blocks the subconscious, and in so doing we become dull and our creativity is hampered. In fact, this is the core problem she identifies to explain why she has trouble painting.
We tend to think of our own subconscious mainly at work in dreams, and of course it is there, though interpreting our dreams and what the subconscious is driving at is an art, one that most of us probably find elusive. We may be less aware of the need for daydreaming, as a way to release the subconscious where it can better interact with the conscious self. Trying to follow Milner, I'm hoping that writing for me is a way to do that, where during the process of composition I fall into a reverie, lose track of everything else, but zone back in after a time. So my indirect goal with the writing, quite apart from producing the essay for others to read, is to experience a sequence of finding reverie, then returning to more conscious awareness, and then repeating the process.
This piece, in particular, is motivated about wanting to touch the subconscious regarding some serious health issues that I am now facing. Of course, I've consciously thought about that quite a bit. But, so far, it doesn't seem as if the subconscious has weighed in on the matter. (Last night I had a dream about a rather horrible gigantic monster that was just waking up, getting ready to wreak havoc. Perhaps the subconscious is beginning to to express itself on the matter, though maybe not. Many other of my fears could explain that dream.) Are the health issues really of no consequence in the grand scheme, because life goes on? Or have I simply not given the subconscious enough of an opportunity to express itself? Indeed, I've written very few blog posts as of late. I have this feeling that I should get back to that and maybe I will, though I seem to have such a small audience. Really that shouldn't matter. I procrastinate now in composing these slow blog posts because I don't want to fully repeat things I've already written, and I want to say something of consequence as well, mainly to prove to myself that I still can. Then I find myself getting stuck on the themes I come up with. The previous post alludes to that in the ultimate section of the piece. Lacking a way to get unstuck, I then look for other reasons not to write. That's where the small audience comes in.
I do something else much more regularly. Every day I will read the Quotes of the Day where four quotes are presented. I select one based on criteria that I would find hard to articulate. Let's just say I look for the one I find most pleasing, for whatever reason. Then I add my personal quip to the quote and post to Facebook. This routine has become an ingrained habit, one I partake in over my first cup of coffee in the morning. (Looking back through my Facebook wall, it is appears I started to do this in 2014.) I mention it here because the quip is evidently a reaction to the selected quote. It may be of interest in asking where the quip comes from and if others were to do likewise in reading the Quotes of the Day whether they'd come up with similar stuff. I don't know, but let's say they would.
I want to contrast this with my other short writing that I do on a daily basis, which started at roughly the same time. I write a rhyme that I post to Twitter (which then is posted to my Facebook wall). Some of the rhymes have links associated with them, something I read, in which case the rhyme is a reaction to the piece and in that sense the rhyme is like the quip I write for the Quote of the Day. The more interesting case here is when there is no link. Where does the rhyme come from then? Does the subconscious emerge here in "choosing" the rhyme?
I think that is a possibility, especially when its a subject theme that comes first to mind although some of these rhymes are riffs on ordinary experience, typically something recent that has come to my attention. There is no subconscious needed for that, just a nose for small things that might be the subject to write about. But even then I might connect the subject to something entirely unrelated. This one, for example, connects the first cup of coffee in the morning with Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. Why make such a connection? The best answer I have to that question is that my subconscious needs to assert itself and such odds connections offer a way to do that.
Sometimes it might just be word play. I come up with a couple of words that rhyme. That's the starting point. Then I might try a line where the first word concludes the line and another line that ends with the second word. I ask myself, is there a potential for a (very short) story here by juxtaposing the lines? Suppose there is. Then a decision needs to be made about format. Many of my rhymes are limericks, but I've experimented with other formats as well. A different one I kind of like has two verses, each verse with three lines. The word at the end of the first line rhymes with the word at the end of the second line in each verse. Then, the word at the end of the third line in the first verse rhymes with the parallel word in the second verse. This one is my favorite with that structure. Is this particular rhyme veiled social commentary or is it just nonsense? I'm not sure. I'm also not sure where the conscious self takes over and where the subconscious holds sway. But I feel their interaction more with the rhymes than with the quips.
Some of this may be the time allotted to the task. I almost always post the quote with the quip first. And I come up with the quip almost immediately, perhaps a minutes or two, not much longer than that. I do have an internal censor (more about quality than about whether stuff is too risque). I think of the activity as trying to find something when I have a pretty good idea already where to look.
Though I post the rhyme second, I've actually written it earlier, quite often the day before, sometimes, unfortunately, when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep. There is more exploration with the rhyme on the topic, on how particular lines might go, on what is needed to fit it all together. The sense of exploration is pretty close to the feeling of reverie I mentioned earlier. When it's happening I am most engaged.
And now I want to talk about my fear about writing. It's that these shorter forms are kind of like eating dessert first. They spoil the dinner. It this is true, I'm having trouble with composing the longer pieces because I spend too much time on the shorter ones.
Or it could be that I'm just out of practice.
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