Joseph Campbell Meditation #2

"Perfection is inhuman.  Human beings are not perfect.  What evokes our love--and I mean love, not lust--is the imperfection of the human being.  So, when the imperfection of the real person peeks through, say, 'This is a challenge to my compassion.'  Then make a try, and something might begin to get going."  from Pathways to Bliss

I have to begin by saying this:  writing about this quote makes me feel like a hypocrite.  It's so utterly true that what I value in others (their humanness) I try to deny in myself.  So it stands to reason that one of the hardest things for me to do always has been to write truthfully.  To write truthfully means I will have to reveal some unsavory aspect of my psyche or my experience.  I don't mean factual truth, but the truths about my shame and my fears.  

The characters in stories I love best are flawed ones, and when I read a story I try to think of the characters not in terms of judgment but in terms of compassion.  This truly has become one of the most pleasurable aspects of reading for me.  In Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, there's a character named King who lies, drinks, neglects his child, and beats his wife.  And yet it is clear from the narrative that Erdrich, the writer, doesn't judge King.  By extension, she challenges the reader not to judge him, but to love him. 

One of my favorite authors, Andre Dubus (who wrote the great story from which the film In the Bedroom was made), said that his characters are neither good nor bad:  they are human.  When I read--or write--a story, I try to empty myself of biases or preconceptions, and I try to deeply penetrate the characters' minds.  If the story is well-written, you'll be able to do that.

I try to come to each writing project--story or poem- with a fresh and open mind.  My process is organic.  I create and then wait.  Create and wait.  I don't stop until a work "feels right."  Or until it's plain to me that the story is never going to work.  Sometimes it never feels right.  I used to think I was failure when this happened; now I shrug and move on.  It wasn't meant to be; there was a fatal mistake in it somewhere.  Perhaps the idea will morph into something that will work later on.

My writing feels right when every sentence seems true.  Each new day I'm a different person, minute to minute, second to second, I am evolving, understanding more, or sometimes I'm backsliding and trying to get back to where I was.  Writing is a record of the evolution of your consciousness.  

I used to try to make my writing perfect; I don't anymore.  I want it to be human, to say something clearly and truthfully.  It's easy to master techniques; it's hard to say something that's true.  Every molecule of our being resists it because our authority figures have punished us for the kinds of failures we most need to explore in our writings.   

It's all about love, man, it's all about love.

I'm not saying that there isn't a place for a character of pure evil in a story.  There are people who cannot be redeemed, who have no conscious, who are ciphers, blanks.  Literature is full of villains, and sometimes a story needs one for balance.

Joseph Campbell Meditation #1

"Metaphors only seem to describe the outer world of time and place.  Their real universe is the spiritual realm of the inner life.  The Kingdom of God is within you."  from Thou Art That

I owe Joseph Campbell a lot.  When I found Power of Myth, I understood I had discovered a work that would dramatically change my reason for writing.  I'd been living for so long without a center.  I was in a dry place.  I wanted to write but the writing was dead.  I still feel that sometimes, but now I know how to reach the center of my creativity.  Not that it's always easy and not that I'm always successful.  But at least now I know I have a center; I know how it feels to write from that place.

I was reading recently that Bob Dylan said that his spirituality comes from his participation in song.  I relate to that.  More and more I am learning to compose from within.  I've always done this, but the writing hasn't always been grounded in the reality of every day life.  My earliest writing efforts were boring and vague, not effective at all in conveying my consciousness.  I've been talking to students a lot lately about how stories and poems are records of consciousness.  We are separated from each other because of geography, worry, or fear; it's art that brings us together because in art we see another's mind and we understand we aren't alone.  In a flash, we experience a moment of wholeness. 

I don't mean that we should just write about positive or pretty things.  Ugliness also must be addressed.