As I contemplate topics to write about and discuss on this site, I’ve found myself wondering whether this is in fact a place for unabashed honesty and openness, or if it needs to be kept somewhat guarded — with some personal sharing, perhaps, but nothing too personal.
Thinking about this, I happened on a passage from Henri Nouwen (whose very personal writing about loss has been a real solace to me on my own particular path through grief). In it, he touches directly on this topic, but from a different perspective than the one I was coming from. Here’s the passage, from Nouwen’s “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith.”
“We like to make a distinction between our private and public lives and say, ‘Whatever I do in my private life is nobody else’s business.’ But anyone trying to live a spiritual life will soon discover that the most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people. That is why our inner lives are lives for others. That is why our solitude is a gift to our community, and that is why our most secret thoughts affect our common life.”
I appreciate Nouwen’s suggestion that our own inner lives are – in some sense – “for others,” and that, somehow, out of solitude and our own private thoughts, we can draw up a wellspring capable of nourishing our “common life” together.
But, whether in our writing or in our living, what’s the right balance between the personal and the public? Where is the via media between private understanding and universal truth?
If this were a totally anonymous online space, then I suppose I could get as honest or as raw as I wanted without worrying about how it might make me appear to other people or what their reactions might be. I could rant incessantly about politics and religion, complain about the trials and tribulations of my day job, or publish my collected oeuvre of geeky sci-fi stories and super-cheesy romantic fan fiction, all without worrying whether or not it will find its way into the results of a Google search and embarrass me at some inopportune moment in the future.
As long as it’s all anonymous, there would seem to be less risk.
But I think I want some risk. I want something to be at stake here. I want to feel like I’m pushing myself in some interesting ways – to write more, sure, but also to write better, and, ultimately, to see more clearly so that I can write with greater honesty and perception about myself and the world around me.
Why am I here, if not to push myself at least a little? I think that’s part of why I worry about playing it too safe, staying too guarded, or being too theoretical and detached in my approach.
I find a part of me is nervous about sharing any real, unguarded thoughts. I suppose that particular part of me is afraid of what people will think, or of what they’ll say, or of how they might judge me. I want to be “Writing Down the Bones,” as Natalie Goldberg calls it, but doing so can make us vulnerable. I want to allow myself to be honest and personal – at least to some degree – but getting personal definitely has its costs.
And, to be really honest, it’s not just about what others might think. The fact is that, if we really go deep and attempt to bring up what’s down there, we might not recognize ourselves in what we find. And we might not like everything we see.
Or, we might recognize ourselves more completely than ever before and have to face the consequences of that recognition. Faced with our own deepest selves, we might come to gain new insights and understandings that make it impossible to continue with business-as-usual or with life-as-we-know-it. Once we start to get a good look at ourselves – whether through writing or contemplation or some other creative or generative act – we might realize that our lives aren’t all they could be, that we could be daring and dreaming and doing so much more than we have ever allowed of ourselves. That kind of realization might be even harder to bear than the harsh judgement and opprobrium of others.
Musing on this topic of the personal and the universal, I also thought of William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” which starts like this:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It’s an intense poem (filled with some intense imagery), but for now I’m thinking primarily about those last lines quoted above: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” There’s an admonition there, perhaps, not to be content with sitting always on the sidelines, letting others’ “passionate intensity” – and their priorities – dictate the shape of our world. As a creative person, as someone trying to lead “the examined life” – a life that’s worth the living – I feel like part of my responsibility is to try and return to the center as often as I can, and, when “things fall apart,” not to give up hope or give in to despair.
When the storms of life get bad, as they doubtless do at times, I’d like to take my personal inspiration from the Taoist sage Lieh Tzu, who, the story goes, traveled from place to place by riding upon the wind itself.
It’s likely, of course, that Lieh Tzu’s windswept wanderings are a metaphor for an inward, spiritual journey, one we all must undertake if we’re to reconcile ourselves with the essential forces that underlie our lives and the world we live in. As the French sinologist Max Kaltenmark observes in his 1965 book “Lao Tzu and Taoism,”
“This means that the Holy Man lives in perfect symbiosis with the cosmos; his life rhythm is so completely identified with the rhythm of the great forces of nature (the Yin and the Yang and their compounds, which are manifest in the seasons, in the weather, and in creatures generally) that it is indistinguishable from them, and hence participates in the infinity and immortality of nature.”
Kaltenmark goes on to quote the Lieh Tzu text itself, which also emphasizes this personal journey inward.
“Your concern is with traveling outwardly. You do not know how to go about inward contemplation. When traveling outwardly, we seek in things that which we lack; by means of inward contemplation, we find satisfaction within ourselves. This second way of traveling is the perfect one, the other is imperfect. … The perfect traveler does not know where he is going; the perfect contemplator does not know what he has before his eyes.” (Lieh Tzu, Chapter 4)
As someone with plenty of experience at being a traveler who “does not know where he is going,” I take some comfort in these lines, just as I take comfort in the idea that trusting in the goodness of the journey itself might be justification enough for taking those first, fearful steps away from my personal comfort zone. Where it all might lead, I cannot say.
It’s awfully easy to feel like we’re prisoners in our own lives, trapped by circumstances and responsibilities beyond our control. And some of this sense is realistic; our lives do impose limits on us, and the choices we make really do steer us towards some destinations and away from others. But, when it comes to the realms of honest self-examination, I suspect a part of me has been afraid of realizing that many of the “closed doors” in my life are only locked in my imagination – that I have lived, in far too many ways, as a prisoner of nothing but my own personal fears and doubts. To acknowledge that, to realize that, could be frightening indeed. To realize that could change everything.
For now, I guess I’ll just “make the path by walking” – or build the blog by blogging, as the case may be – and see what comes of it. Will I manage to stay true to the center? Will I find the right balance between the universal and the personal, between openness and self-preservation? In trying my best to take flight, will I trip over my own two feet and fall, flat on my face, for all the world to see? Tune in next time for the answers to these and other exciting questions.
Till then, safe travels to you all along the Way. I think I hear a storm kicking up out there, and a gusty wind rising to carry me on down the road.
(Photo by Delano Balten on Unsplash)
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