Written on June 27, 2009
Dear Readers,
My goal was to write more, even if I don’t get a chance to post as often as before when there was easy internet access. But that goal has, as you can see, yet to be met. I’m not going to let myself get worked up about it, but I will try to write more. As I’ve said before, I enjoy writing. However, also as I’ve said before, it’s usually difficult for me. A challenge that sometimes makes me undermines my confidence in it. Is this what challenges are supposed to do? One would think that a challenge is something that makes you stronger, like a weight against a muscle. But if it undermines you, is it weakening you? Which of course would be a negative aspect of a challenge. Or are you letting it weaken you?
Well, these obsessional thought spirals are no fun, and not healthy either. I’m not sure they are even that philosophical, because I think philosophy drives to understand the universe, not get stuck in the ruts of it. So I guess I’ll say to this line of thought “Screw it.”
But it does bring up something I’ve been wondering about. I should forewarn you all that this might be a rambling blog entry. I’ll try to keep it as non-rambling as possible. Anyway, I’ve continued in my painting. I can see I’m getting better, but I’m still very much a beginner. I am just learning how to mix colors and last week learned how to make the color brown (red, blue and yellow). But to stick to the point, I’ve been wondering about creativity. Why do people create pictures and sculptures and stories? It seems like they have beauty to bring forth to the world, but what if what we regard as art is just cast off energy? I wonder if artists dwell on their creations. I don’t really. I finish a story or a drawing and if I feel it’s good, I am proud of it and tell people about it and sometimes spend time reading it or looking at it. But mostly I just see it as a creature I’ve done and then move on. So is it expelled energy from artists, these works of theirs? I guess the thought came to me while I was looking at some of my paintings I’ve done and it occurred to me I haven’t really thought about them in a long time. While working on them my mind is all lit up with how it might turn out, and how to get it there, and how to understand my limitations as push them just a little further to get better. But then when I’m done the buzz wears off for that picture and soon afterwards I start the process over with a new one. If I refer to the old picture, it’s often to see what I can learn from it, although I have to admit I feel proud to see something I’ve created.
Writing fiction has always been hard for me. Fun, but slow going and difficult. And my stories have almost always seemed flat. Two stick out from my mind as exceptions to that, and they were both rooted in personal experience. Similarly, writing in my blog is not that hard for me because I say what’s I on my mind and what I’m feeling in my heart. When I was taking writing classes and spoke with visiting published authors, I discussed with them the idea of risking something for the audience, and now after years of first hearing about this concept, I think I might finally be starting to understand it. I think my stories lack real feeling of some kind. The best word I can think of at this hour of ten past midnight is soul. To pour my feelings into what I write, in other words. For a long time I thought to make a story captivating, you just had to put the words down and let it tell itself, but I’m not sure it’s that simple now. I think you have to feel the story, feel the characters, feel the scenery, and that’s where it is perhaps. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt drawn to visual arts, because I have a visual imagination which I could more easily feel different worlds with.
I guess I’m not sure how to do this, but at least I have a start now. At the moment I’m working on a story that I’m kind of stuck on. As interesting as I sense it to be, I just don’t feel all that riled up about it. But maybe I’m approaching it the wrong way, and that’s sapping my imagination to uncover what it is. Lots of times when I write I start out with an idea that takes me to a completely different place that what I had been planning. Maybe in this case I’m trying to be too rational.
Switching gears here, I thought would talk a little bit about what’s going on in site. One would guess it’s winter again, as cloudy, cool and drizzly as it’s been. I’ve also decided to do a project where I help establish a library in the town, in case I didn’t bring this up last time (I don’t think I did). I am excited about this project because, truthfully, it’s the first project I am really interested in. I don’t mean that to sound negative, but I am actually burning out on Water and Sanitation. For those of you just tuning in, I didn’t choose this program. I wanted to go into some type of forestry program. I’m not sure that would have fit me either, but I’m not completely convinced any of the Peace Corps programs would have fit me, and that seemed closest to my interests at the time. But they told me I didn’t have enough forestry experience so I was slotted for a more general program, a combination of health and environment. I’m not sure I exactly agree with their methodology in hindsight, but whatever. WatSan (as we call it) is a fine and necessary program, but I don’t think it’s for me.
In fact, I don’t think most of the work as a volunteer is for me. It’s been kind of a painful discovery, but I’ve been learning a lot about myself. So why stick with it? I guess I’m curious to see where this will go. For one thing, as I just mentioned, I have been completely amazed at what I’ve discovered about who I am. You hear people talk about that sometimes and it sounds fake and kind of glib, but it really is true. I also think that official job aside, there is lots of room to work in different ways. I love to read. I really love to read, actually. So that has inspired me to share that passion by building a library and now I want to start a reading program as well to encourage others to read. My dad suggested that to me at first I thought it was dumb as hell until I started to realize he was onto something. It turns out that some of the teachers in the school have similar thoughts that my dad was trying to convey to me: Try to get these kids interested in books and get some good reading habits formed early, and now I’m looking forward to helping with it. So my dad gets credit for that idea.
My friends always ask me what’s new here, and really the answer almost invariably is, “Very little.” I don’t know how to measure life here, or how to measure progress when it seems so little perceptible is made. So very little, in fact, you start to doubt yourself on so many levels. I’d be tempted to think it’s just me, but after various conversations, I think lots of volunteers feel this way. One could be tempted to think that the Peace Corps is a sloppy haphazard job from some volunteers’ descriptions (or at least some of mine when I’m not in a good mood), but I think that’s looking at it in a negative light. I think it just takes a creative mind to try to bring things to the surface in this work, be it a library, or an English class, or a sports club, or a crafts session (another project I’m trying to create) or whatever. It looks sloppy because projects are usually done in a trial and error way. I don’t know much about how to garden or start a library for a town. It’s all by-the-seat-of my-pants work. It takes a lot of energy patience, and thus it can be a very exhausting, emotionally and spiritually draining experience. It’s not that I know this is worth it, though, it’s just that some instinct inside of me is telling me that it is. For me or for the people in my town though? Well, I once heard a quote that said “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is people who’ve come alive.” I don’t know that I’ll ever do a job like this again. I think once might be enough. But here I am, and somehow despite the challenges that come with the territory, I feel like the learning I’ve done is helping me come alive. It hasn’t always been clean or easy, but insights to life are more valuable when you work to get them.
Hope all is well.
Tristan
PS: Patrick wants to say hi. He doesn't have a blog of his own so he invades mine.
