Reality Redefined.
The mirror glass is still intact
Dividing us from all there is…
No metronome controls the tune:
The podium seems vacant, but
All clamour and would fain conduct.
The score mislaid, and not yet bowed,
The key itself is undefined…
The concert now is being tuned
By discordant soloists
Trumpets blown are all their own…
Not being a proficient musician I have only the currency of words. They are plucked out of silence. When I christened this blog ‘Careless Talk‘ it left the more important part, ‘Costs Lives’ implicit. That was because I hoped the life of writing, and other writers would complete it. It was an invitation to those who understood silence to gather round and illustrate the ‘cost of their lives’ from which were derived decisions to write. Instead I suspect it was misunderstood as the sanctioning of the trivial or ill-considered. So perceived, so it appeared, a soliloquy diverting at best, but inconsequential. No programme, no benefits, no bullet lists, little relevance. There is no time, these days, simply to be amused or diverted, or even provoked. All must be to some gain, or some progress. We are all in such a hurry going nowhere, elbowing our way as nicely as possible.
As the observant might notice my site is no longer ‘ Mavericks and Inspiration’ or ‘Quite Serious Fun’ but re-christened ‘Reality Redefined’. What I hope to keep in focus is the gulf each of us steps across to render wordless experience into words. Experience is wordless. It is the silence that gives shape to words, poetry most tellingly, but even the podium on which prose holds forth, around which characters strive to ‘reach goals’ plots ‘turn pages’, or polemic bangs its drum, starts with the first word ‘Once…’ or variants thereof.
Our voices are shaped by our lives, our words by the fit between the reality of our unique journey and what we distil as worthy of offering, valuable, quirky, creative or escapist. Choices govern. As writers we have a mission (though few would be brave enough to admit it.) Affirming our identity, our unique vision we set words down, and hope for one other to say ‘I get who you are, and what you are about.’ In writing we first find out about ourselves; in publishing we look in the mirror that reflects back.
It does not always reflect clearly. The perception in the mirror might be fogged due to the indiscriminate and clumsy words themselves, or, more often, the angle of light, the disposition of the glass slanted against a clear reflection, or a failure to stand still and let the image focus. Or it is just not what we expected, so we do not see at all.
If I have a passion it is to stand clear of coercion. If I have a skill I hope it is to make space for the perfection of the individual. It is why Involution- An Odyssey, a history of Western thought, tells the rosary beads of genius, on which our seeming certainties all rest. We have been indoctrinated by the soulless narrative that we have arrived here by accident, our ephemeral short lives meaningless in the greater scheme of creation. No wonder we all shout to contradict. Before we drown in the story we have collectively agreed upon, and make it true.
I disagree with almost all of it. Reality is not that story (or that stony). That is only the perception.
This blog will explore the difficulties of a Reality up against that Perception; how it occasions compromise, subverts the original, feeds on competition, persuades the unique to dress more soberly to pass muster. My invitation now is amended from the ‘careless talk’ to the ‘costed’ lives. Join in and shout, interrupt, contradict. Suggest guest posts or interviews that affirm your unique experiences and how (if you write) it shaped that writing? If you read what changed when you found that reflection? If consciousness creates then you share the responsibility of assent. Amend that assent, give us your caveats.
The spiritual is not a sentiment, or a posture, but a vigorous affirmation of your place in the symphony of consciousness. I hope to reaffirm. Please join me? Subscribe and add weight, every little helps.
Trivial does not make much sense
In symphonic consciousness…
Relationships are intricate.
A piccolo will penetrate
The deep ocean of a unison bass.
INVOLUTION: Science and God: Reality Redefined 
Superb Re-Beginning—I Salute You…
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Felt I should commit this very day. I shall frame an interview in which you can let rip! Nearly done.
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Excellent 🙂
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… A piccolo will penetrate
The deep ocean of a unison bass …
Thanks. Food for thought.
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Decided to stop running, away or towards!
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lovely Philippa, I look forward to strolling through …
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Good Susan. You may get snagged on a few wag’n bietjie (sp?) thorns. I am all for politeness but apart from vicious pinch and run comments on Twitter, the internet can sometimes seem rather anodyne. If anyone is in a position to disagree you are! Thanks for registering here!
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We need to plant a few Wait-a-bit trees along the path.
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btw – I LOVED your Reality Re-defined at the beginning … just re-read it while sitting out on other balcony overlooking the sea with the sun setting behind me and the sky streaked with pink and orange ..
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Like Wordsworth said about emotions being recollected in tranquility, we cannot record experiences until we have processed them. And life seems to be about thundering on without taking a moment to ruminate. Indeed, the concept of rumination is considered abhorent now; I recently read a book on CBT that demonised it as a needless and endless spiral of fruitless pondering.
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Having just read your extraordinary long commented piece on Susan Howatch you have probably solved my husband’s reading for the foreseeable future! I have never read her so mine too, in time. I have decided to stop thundering, since I realised (when I stopped over Christmas) that I hardly laugh, these days. So busy, busy, doing nothing I respect. Instead writing will now dominate, and I shall not conceal any pondering if it occurs! One remark made by a reviewer might be relevant to your comment ‘It made me realize how sparse most writing has become and how necessary to be given deep pools of velvety water in which to plunge’ perhaps suggests there are those who want to get out of their depth!
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Oh indeed!
But it’s the finding of such readers than presents a problem. Fashions in writing dictate taste, to a greater or lesser extent and at present wordiness is anathema to the current fashion for pared-to-the-bone prose.
I’m in a similar but less sanguine state of mind. My post for Monday may explain better than a comment here.
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I hope I am not over-wordy! Perhaps often over-explicit, and I admit I do love words, for their subtle precision, like fine forceps to tease and display. That’s probably all derived from too much dissection as a student! I have just begun to read Jean Christophe and the author Romain Roland has no inhibitions in embarking upon the very birth of his principal character. The Ian McEwan school of sparsity leaves me stone cold, but I accept it’s probably meant to- no indecent emotions here please!
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Or how about Tristram Shandy where the first quarter of the book occurs before the birth of the main character?
No, not over-wordy at all, I’d say, but then I love words. I’m far from keen on McEwan and the like myself.
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I took a risk, and glad I did. I would never demolish a writer I did not like, merely let them go peaceably, but this was one exception. A review of the hyper hyped Chesil Beach.http://www.therecusant.org.uk/#/philippa-rees-on-ian-mckewan/4530345512 Sometimes it is necessary to protest!
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Excoriating!
I read Atonement and gave up after that as *not for me*.
Reading that review makes me VERY relieved you liked The Bet; I don’t have either the sales, the brio or the public acclaim to cushion me against such a thorough gutting of a review.
(I am also amused how much you disliked On Chesil Beach. I can never see the point of reading a book about people the author seems not to want me to like or feel for at least)
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Even if I hadn’t liked it (the Bet) I would never have gone at it with a blow torch. Only he-who-is-well-cushioned by an army of publicists and billboards that flanked Heathrow had the defenses. Besides it is well hidden on a site that very few read so I could say what I felt, knowing it wouldn’t get very far. But it was also the expression for many others who felt contaminated and duped by the pretense of a literary book when the pornography was always uppermost. (!) Atonement was not quite so cynical, but fitted Keira Knightley to perfection.
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It’s a shame that it couldn’t have gone wider-read. But then, what would the fall-out have been?
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I suspect I might have been lynched! And saved from literary ambitions, and turned to crochet. I am careful who I send in that direction!
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Fabulous direction Philippa! I look forward t joining in the discussion and contributing if/when it seems appropriate. 🙂 I shall ponder what inspires me to write through this lens. For someone who just moved back to Sydney its a very zeitgeisty theme – the theme for the 2015 fireworks in Sydney this year was literally ‘inspire’ so sometimes it does feel that the stars align and the formerly chaotic universe takes shape… 🙂 🙂
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Great to have you along Helen. I am tired of all the exhortations to conformity! Delighted to think you are likely to be on board, and what little I have gleaned from your posts, comments and poems makes me sure you will have important things to offer. All the very best for a happier and more rewarded NY.
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