“I write to discover what I know”
Flannery O’Connor
I have never considered myself, aspired to be, or had the confidence to call myself a writer. Yet here I am, sitting at my laptop, putting fingers to keyboard — and it is fingers, no thumbs. Should I be using my thumbs? Why am I getting so distracted by this thought?
Six years ago, I set out to prove something to myself. I applied and was accepted to do a Masters. I have spoken about this before, but this was for me. I did not do well at school. From my mid-teens, I was told that there was no such thing as dyslexia and that I was just lazy and stupid, so I should just get on with it. And I believed it.
It took a while to come to the realisation that this was not true. I walked with someone recently, younger than me, who had gone through something similar, and they described it as bullying. I never saw it that way at the time, but I suppose that is exactly what it was. The Masters, at 50 years old, was going to be something that I did for myself. Up until then, I had seen education as a punishment, but I quickly learnt that it could be something entirely different, something encouraging, something that gave back. Out of it came the story pilgrim.
And here I am. Next month, I will be publishing my sixtieth newsletter. One a month. Five years. Five years of writing thoughts, events, and meaningful interactions that I felt I needed to pass on. That is a lot of words. They say that everyone has a book in them, and I suppose this is mine. Then there are the blogs — these blogs — and there is a lot of me in them. I do not know who is reading them. I do not know if anyone is reading them. But I enjoy the process, and the process helps me connect, to myself.
I talk a lot about walking in nature and how that helps me connect, both to it and to myself. Writing does something very similar. It allows those thoughts that sit in the background, the voice that runs constantly, to find a way out. They come through my fingers and appear there, in front of me, on the screen. In some way, by doing that, they become real. They become tangible. I can almost touch them, I can change them, I can read them back.
This week, I went for a walk with William Shakespeare. AI William Shakespeare. A lot of actors and creators are shying away from AI, some even running from it. I am trying to be a little more open-minded. The episode is far from perfect, but it has sparked some thoughtful conversations. I asked AI to write a sonnet for today, a sonnet about our conversation, and I have to admit, it is rather good. The final two lines stopped me:
“So listen to the silence when you can,
For that’s where nature speaks to every man.”
Isn’t that so true?
I am rambling, but I suppose what I am trying to say is this: if there is something in your life that unsettles you, something that brings in that sense of fear or uncertainty about what might happen, it might be worth giving it a go. You never really know where it might lead, and if it carries no real risk, if it is not going to do you any harm, then there is every chance that something good will come of it. I am more convinced of that now than I have ever been.
