Blog Manifesto

Blog Manifesto


This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Self-forgetfulness

I'm reading an article about Henry Stanley, famous for his search for Livingstone in Africa. Around the age of 33, he proposed marriage to Alice Pike, 19. She accepted and he began his three year trek from the East coast to the West coast of Africa with her picture and a letter of her undying love for him in his pocket. Of the 220 men who started the journey only half survived the dysentery, accidents and other calamities which occurred.

While writing about the adventure he credited his survival to his fiance, Alice, his love, "my stay, my hope, and my beacon". He was able to fixate on her rather than the horrible conditions surrounding him. He called this ability 'self-forgetfulness'. At one point in their journey, a decision, which he opposed, was made to wait at a camp for additional porters who never came. Eventually, they continued on but Stanley reported, "The cure for their misgivings and doubts would have been found in action, rather than enduring deadly monotony." He occupied himself with discoveries and writing, shutting out "baser thoughts".  Stanley saw the work as a mental escape: "For my protection against despair and madness, I had to resort to self-forgetfulness; to the interest my task brought...This encouraged me and was morally fortifying."

Action vs. boredom. Any activity is better than boredom. And so, I write, draw, make valances, take drives, play with the dog,  learn something new like TONK, and read the Smithsonian magazine. And I learn about self-forgetfulness, a worthy topic.
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