Origins

I have three creative passions. In no particular order, they are music, writing and photography. Not that “passion” in this usage implies any particular ability or accomplishment – I just know that something feels internally awry if I don’t touch base regularly with these pursuits. Whenever I stray too far, I begin to feel a self-correcting creative impulse. For some time now, the balancing inclination has turned towards writing, spurred on in no small part by Facebook’s innocuous “What’s on your mind?” invitation. After posting a few personal observations as notes on my Facebook page, a curious thing happened. I began to receive a quiet flood of private messages, all asking variations on the same themes: “What’s going on?” and “Are you okay?” Intrigued by this reaction, I went back and reread these postings. It did seem like their tone was somewhat wistful – almost melancholy – but I think that accurately reflected the mental space I was in. As I looked at these pieces and other works in progress in light of these reactions, I began to wonder if something larger was at work.

In the middle of the last century, psychologist Erik Erikson advanced a psychosocial development theory suggesting that as humans we pass through eight successive stages of development, and that we move through each stage on one of two trajectories: One typified by the successful completion of the challenges presented by that stage, and the other characterized by an inability to overcome those same challenges. Erikson believed that because each stage builds on the previous, any failure to respond to or master the obstacles of a given stage would likely manifest itself as issues (what he called maladaptations) in the subsequent stages.

I am nearly at the midpoint of Erikson’s seventh stage, in what he called Middle Adulthood. According to his model, the key challenge confronting people in this stage is Generativity vs. Stagnation. Expressed in question form, this stage asks the following: “Have I produced or will I produce something of real value, particularly as it may benefit subsequent generations?” Although its primary focus was on parenting and adult behavior as it impacted childhood development, Erikson also evaluated the effects and impacts of this stage as it related to work/creative pursuits as both affirmation of a more highly evolved self and contribution to society at large.

Without children of my own, I nonetheless sense something of this question in current interactions with my extended family, in my work and urban communities, and in my creative endeavors. In some respects it’s an easy mark, as the individual is the final arbiter of value (i.e. I get to decide if I have produced something of worth), and I think it’s here that we also lose something by focusing too much attention on the result. To borrow from Robinson Jeffers: “But instantly the private agony that made the search / Muddles the finding.” The more meaningful point seems less to provide any particular answer, but to struggle with the question – perhaps creative salvation occurs not in the act of judging expression to determine value, but is secured by the act of expression itself: The sentence written, the photo taken, the note sounded.

If expression equates to salvation, and salvation intrinsically assumes value, then the query should be answered – we should tick the psychological box for this stage and move on – but for me there are yet more gates. The pieces I have produced of late and posted here are personal and reflective, which I believe derives from the very struggles Erikson characterized. Having achieved a particular age (passing into my second half century), and experienced significant life events (including the deaths of both my parents), it is only natural and fitting for a certain reflectiveness to settle in, but the merit stands or falls in the manner of retelling the tale. Therefore the fulcrum on which the question of value rests is emotional honesty: Did I produce something that was true to its inception and deals honestly with the subject matter, or did I redact or embellish to protect against the deeper truth, the latter leaving me recursively trapped in the struggle and validating the leitmotif of the Eriksonian model?

The task is further complicated with self-reflective chronicling, as the novelist’s expressive subterfuge of characters is largely unavailable to the honest biographer. The protective instinct in self-expression is strong, and the act of trying to adjust our history to suit our present tastes is a kind of resistance, a naïve desire to bend or conform reality to terms on which we can then engage. It is a holding at arms’ length that which we fear will embarrass or overwhelm us in its fullness – an experiential filter we employ to keep us somehow safe. Jeffers again: “Why does insanity twist the great answers? / Because only tormented persons want truth.”

If the inspirational compass has swung to writing, and the Middle Adulthood stage has set the requirement and the bar for value, what role does publication play? Simple ego gratification, monetary reward, or some kind of proof that you have gone a few rounds with the muse and are ready for your next psychological stage? The motivational answer is unique to each individual, but common thread is that publication is the natural extension and continuation of writing: we all write so that others will read what we have written, even when we risk potentially uncomfortable disclosures. Whatever inhibitions the act of writing in private allows us to shed, the contemplation of publishing enjoins a certain schizophrenia. On the one hand, writers must be guarded and self-critical enough to keep toiling on any given piece until it is ready to be shared. For me, this doesn’t mean any predefined level of completeness or maturity, as the expressive goal may be fractured and raw, but that it has reached a point where it conveys the thoughts, ideas, emotions and concepts I intended it to deliver through the experiential arc I intended for the reader. Once it has reached this critical mass, the writer must then switch gears to be a kind of bold purveyor, as publication is tantamount to saying “Dear Reader: What I have created is good enough that you should spend your time, energy and potentially even your money to read.”

Options for publication in the modern digital frontier are nearly unlimited once you have decided to share your work, and the experience of my early offerings on Facebook was that it just didn’t seem to be the right venue. In the 1990 movie Ghost, the late Patrick Swayze played the spirit of a murdered banker. In one scene, his character stands on a subway platform and leans into a passing train, scanning the occupants in an attempt to locate another ghost (being incorporeal he can do this without harm). The result is a frantic blur of bodies and faces rushing past; bits and pieces of identities flashing momentarily. Facebook is a lot like that, in that it trades communicative depth for breadth. It conditions us to quickly process hundreds (apparently thousands for some) of snippets of information, rather than to spend time involved with any one piece. Twitter is potentially even worse in this regard, causing a sort of literary attention deficit disorder that makes us balk at the notion of reading anything exceeding a few sentences. While there are certainly expressive and socially connective values associated with these forms of social media, they are not ideally suited to writers seeking to publish works of any length, nor to readers looking to explore ideas in more detail.

I also initially dismissed the concept of a blog, as I believed the requisite form was to be highly informal and conversational, shorter in length, and published frequently. I have since come to find that the first rule of blogging is that (copyright infringement and plagiarism aside), there generally are no rules. This site, then, is my embracing of the medium as a self-publishing portal for pieces that are perhaps a bit longer and more evolved than seem appropriate for elsewhere, published when and as I finish them. If the struggle is mine, and the narrative grist follows no prescribed chronology, then the reportage should be on my imprecise terms as well.

There are certainly logical attendant questions about whether I do any disservice to readers by not publishing at regular intervals, and why I choose to post “for free” as opposed to submitting works for compensated publication, but for now those will have to wait. In the practice of meditation, there is an adage that seeks to console and encourage those having a difficult time staying focused: It doesn’t matter how many times your return, it only matters that you do. My current guiding parallel goes something like this: It doesn’t matter what I write, or whether it is published, or if anyone reads it, or likes it, it only matters that I write. Generativity. So, what’s going on? I’m not exactly sure, but I’m running with it. Am I okay? Somewhere near there, but thanks for checking. And thanks for reading.