From Toni Morrison

Introducing Wordly Inspiration, an occasional series of words and writing.

Our first Wordly Inspiration comes from Toni Morrison from her Nobel prize acceptance speech in 1993:

"Word-work is sublime … because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference — the way in which we are like no other life.
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives."

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From Georgia O'Keeffe

Wordly Inspiration from Georgia O'Keeffe's letter to Sherwood Anderson, in response to the doubts he expressed about his own writing:

"Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you..."

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From Stephen King

Wordly Inspiration from Stephen King, reminding me that I look forward to more sleeping and more (well, any at all) writing soon. Well, really I look forward to unlocking my mind from the humdrum that has been dealing with 2022.

"In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives."

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From Lucie Britsch

Wordly Inspiration from Luci Britsch: words that hushed my continual self-questioning about whether I should be writing or I should be doing something 'more useful':

"Write like the ghosts of all the women in history who weren't allowed to write are standing next to you wondering what a laptop is and why you're still in your pajamas."

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From Isaac Asimov

Wordly Inspiration from Isaac Asimov, who has long inspired me to write:

"Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers."

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From Mary Pipher

 Wordly Inspiration from Mary Pipher, the author of Writing to Change the World:

"A writer's job is to tell stories that connect readers to all the people on earth, to show these people as the complicated human beings they really are, with histories, families, emotions, and legitimate needs. We can replace one-dimensional stereotypes with multidimensional individuals with whom our readers can identify."

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From Oliver Sacks

Wordly Inspiration from Oliver Sacks, who not only wrote prolifically, he regularly reflected on the process of his own writing.

"The act of writing is itself enough; it serves to clarify my thoughts and feelings. The act of writing is an integral part of my mental life; ideas emerge, are shaped, in the act of writing...a special, indispensable form of talking to myself."

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From Thom Gunn

Wordly Inspiration from Thomas Gunn, from an autobiographical essay, a sentiment shared by most of us who write:

"I must count my writing as an essential part of the way in which I deal with life."

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From Hilary Mantel

Wordly Inspiration from Hilary Mantel, searching for trust that I will still be a writer when I can return to these pages.

"Of course, writers find it difficult to trust themselves. It can seem such an inflated claim, that you are a writer. So you think you have to keep proving it, by persecuting paper with ink or pounding the keys, as if you need a self-justifying witness to your own strength of purpose... You can’t measure your productivity day-to-day in any way the world recognizes."

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From Mark Twain

Wordly Inspiration from the immortal Mark Twain (well, a bit dated with his use of 'man') for those days when you feel your writing is derivative:

"The kernel, the soul — let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances — is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men — but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his."

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Why bother?

Wordly Inspiration: it may be a wound, it may be a hunger, it may be a question, but writing is always worth the bother (from the socials, source unknown).

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Fear and writing

Wordly Inspiration for these weeks when I'm not able to get my thoughts clear. Fear from the pandemic is wreaking havoc with our bodies and minds, so no new posts at the moment. I hope soon to be able to focus.

Unfortunately, I am unable to find the source, but says everything I want to tell myself.



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From Nandini Pandey

Wordly Inspiration from Nandini Pandey, pondering the value, quandary and therapeutic benefit of writing during a pandemic. 

Nandini writes about the classics and this is a reflection on Ovid's poems Tristia (sad poems) and Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from the Black Sea):

"But when the universe is collapsing in flames, there is a certain solace in building new little worlds on the page. In ordering words, wrestling thoughts into sense, giving fixable form to chaos when we can put right so little else. In reaching out from our own isolation to fellow humans in theirs, by a means that’s no substitute for human contact, but that’s managed on occasion to survive “Jupiter’s anger, fire and sword, the gnawing tooth of time.”

That’s what Ovid’s exile poems teach us: the consolation not of philosophy, but of poetry, in its original, almost magical sense of making."

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From Susan Orlean

Wordly Inspiration from Susan Orlean, whose words jolted me - why is it that I have to remind myself so often of this, and struggle to accept that as sufficient reason??

"You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it."

"You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and... you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world."

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From Jorge Luis Borges

Wordly Inspiration from the brilliant and irreverent Jorge Luis Borges:

"It is often forgotten that [dictionaries] are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."

 

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From Ursula Le Guin

Wordly Inspiration from Ursula Le Guin to help me hold it together while I do flood recovery work instead of writing. I like to think the ideas are scouring through some of the vast silences while I paint the walls. 

"One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience. There are always areas of vast silence in any culture, and part of an artist’s job is to go into those areas and come back from the silence with something to say." 

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TATKOP 127

There Are Two Kinds Of People: those who seek heros for inspiration and those who prefer villains. 

See more in the TATKOP series.

 

Romantic - the language of flowers

♦️ Romantic (adjective): relating to love or to sexual relationships.

It's a Tuesday evening and my friend B and I are enjoying a beer after work. We're doing what we often do: making up back stories about the city workers walking past on their way home.

It's nearly 5pm and the streets are starting to crowd, so we finds lots of inspiration in the jostling pedestrians. Eventually B says, "Why are so many people carrying flowers?"

"Because it's Valentine's Day; didn't you remember? Ooh, you'll be in trouble when you get home!"

He shrugs, "Nah, I would never get flowers just because it's Valentine's Day. We never used to do that in Australia. I don't know why we started. I think Lee minds a bit, but I find it annoying to be told I have to buy them."

Burdened - writing the load off

This month marks two years of Wordly Explorations. A time for review. 

Last year pushed many of us to consider what we were filling our lives with and why. What are we doing with our precious finite time on earth? Are we relishing and honoring all that life offers? Are we exploring the vast richness of our physical, emotional, aesthetic and intellectual experiences? Are we honestly facing our challenges, and supporting others through theirs? Are we doing anything meaningful?

And for me: is writing a blog the right thing to be doing at this time in history? In what way does the blog contribute to the world? 

It was a weighty question and played on my mind over many months. 

With this in the background, I read Susan Sontag's 1966 Against Interpretation and Other Essays. I was struck with new ideas from these 60-year-old essays. I sorted out a few puzzles, found a new perspective on topics I struggle with, and cheered her underlying argument: how we use words can either open or close our eyes to the wonderful complexity of the world. 

In short, I experienced what I hoped my exploration of words and the world might provide for readers: maybe a new perspective, perhaps a pause to reflect on how we use words, and even occasionally, some new ideas.

Douchebag - easy sewing project

By guest explorer: Mae Wright

The last post Douches - and other bags touched on the practice of adding 'bag' to words to make an insult about people - a 'human bag' full of whatever unpleasant stuff - douche, wind, scum, rats etc. (It also links to using old bag or baggage as insult for an older woman.)

If adding 'bag' makes an unpleasant substance into an insult, it follows that a bigger bag is a bigger insult. Right?

Which brings me to the douche satchel!

From Urban dictionary, the douche satchel is:

♦️ a 'satchel' is a really big bag... of 'douche'. So someone who is a really big douche bag, would be a 'douche satchel'
♦️ an expletive, used in instances of anger/frustration.

Artist's impression

That makes sense: some douchebags are very annoying, and some are very, very annoying. The more overtly entitled and in-your-face, the more irritating and aggravating, so the larger the 'bag'. 

I wonder, is this the beginning of douche insults escalating in baggage sizes? The douche backpack, the douche suitcase, the douche ski-bag? (Come to think of it, I'm sure I've dated a few douche ski-bags.)