lettered trails

“You must write throughout the whole of your intellectual life.
In the first place one writes for oneself, to see clearly
into one’s personal position and problems, to give definition to one’s thoughts, to keep up and stimulate attention which sometimes flags
if not kept on the alert by activity- to make a beginning on lines of investigation which prove to be necessary as one writes,
to encourage oneself in an effort that would be wearisome
in the absence of some visible result, lastly to form one’s style
and acquire that possession which puts the seal on all the others,
the writer’s art.”

~ A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, p.199.


After considering the draw of physical pilgrimage, inward lettered paths provide the complement. By this I refer to the rewards of reading pursuits. Imagine the roads, air lanes, and waterways finding equivalents among library aisles, pages, and sketched images. Learning is implicit to discovery. Seeking to find is essentially a venturing forth to comprehend. Foraging through written words, books, conversations, even active listening, can mark paths to our own written words. As with geographic travel, voyages through ideas and words must be purposefully sought. In my experience, the lure of promising landscapes is akin to the drive for insight. The latter is a continuing search for practical knowledge and perspective, so that I can take to the trails more skillfully.

During a meandering walk, I noticed how thoughts naturally distill into ideas. In their own intangible ways, untethered musings become fruitful. Though not visibly productive, an adventure is in progress. Words, images, and aspirations are forming with each step. Consequently, thirsting for wisdom and insight proceeds as a continuing pursuit. One might not consider such studies necessary, but I’ve found learning to be vital, satisfying, and useful. As pilgrimage travels are beyond the perfunctory, so contemplative reading is far too compelling to be burdensome. Essentially, the whole of life’s advancement comprises different forms of research. Enjoyable reading and inquiry generates momentum, and I am able to find the narrow passages through thinly-sliced schedules. Such pilgrimage is a worthwhile continuum of construction and refinement.

Reflective reading and writing permit for the recording and charting of journeys past and upcoming. When ideas are in short supply, it generally means I’m not reading or observing enough. Inspiring written words, along with landscapes and skies, bring souls to pose questions. If not for inquiries into worlds of knowledge and Spirit, I’d be pulled into whirlpools turbid with time’s undertow. Yet indeed, the research passion is discreet by nature; thought processes not for their own sakes, but with hopes for application.

Ordinarily, elementary and secondary school experiences enforce study specifically toward the goals of passing exams. With fear and hope as tandem motivating factors, the shame of failure combines with the drive for timely completion. Between Chaucerian “fear fled with fury,” and Coleridge’s “work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,” potential joys in studies suffocate. Then, in the post-survival, comes the challenge of finding one’s own delight in learning that will last beyond time. For me, the steadily sweeter tastes evolved alongside my increased abilities to choose my own coursework- especially in graduate school.

A decade on since thesis-writing, the momentum remains, even intensifying with each exploration. I still recall how in my solitary jubilation at completing the heavy, source-cited, footnoted, field-tested document, I took that printed pack of paper out for a steak dinner. Raising a toast to the achievement was simultaneously a celebration of more freedom to read anything I want. And freedom to do more writing (albeit with less free time). That mixture of gratitude and exhilaration has not died away. It is surely reignited during sojourns in extraordinary libraries such as the Boston Athenaeum.

As a thirsting pilgrim, I seek the words of experienced narratives from times other than my own. For such forays, I’m “reading with a pencil,” slowly savoring turns of phrases and making notes. Often these notations become indexes for subsequent references which I’m able to use and share. Stored wisdom, like a cupboard’s ingredients, can find value in its uses. These mined gems are in themselves good reads. Not unlike journaling, the indexes are written and referred to, for memory and future navigation. The assembling of thoughts and words can be as gratifying as active reading. Maps drawn during one journey can inform explorations that follow.

(Below: How I've indexed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Citadelle.)

Recently, I attended a lecture given by a social commentator. It was entertaining, and I could see how the speaker draws remuneration from these sorts of presentations. About midway though the talk, it became obvious to me (and perhaps to others) how the speaker was far more an observer than a practitioner. There are significant differences between speaking about expressive processes evidently as an outside observer, compared to providing a practitioner’s experience while describing creative processes. Spectators that also participate on the playing field can attest to the ways both reading and writing complete a nourishing cycle of absorption and manifestation. The twin endeavors of reading and writing intertwine, being ways of inquiry and understanding.

The speaker’s words stumbled whenever it came to describing materials and processes, despite the implication that we were all to believe the speaker knew these things from the inside out. With respect, I hope there are chances for future projects that will bring the presenter into personal pursuits of applied process. Sertillanges once advised that:

“We must always be more than we are;
the philosopher must be something of a poet, the poet
something of a philosopher; the craftsman must be poet
and philosopher on occasion,
and the people recognize this fact.”

Perhaps the great “published work” is a self that develops an improving sense of perspective and of the sacred. Thus, reading, studying, and writing are components in a construction project. Aspiring to be at once observer and practitioner causes us to “be more than we are.” An invaluable pursuit, at many levels, and the type of path worthy of plotting, mapping, and travelling.

hands

“Hands that make each day begin again
and bring to light
our distant dreams.”

~ The Monks of Weston Priory, Hands


For the written word to reach the legible surface, an idea must be held buoyant from its depths. Then we form our phrases as they are written down. From eternities and immediate reflexes alike, our hands perform the recording in our own language of thought. The individual is unique and potentially a point of original perspective. Stopping to think about it, I recall the whirlwind of sights, sounds, interactions, and imaginings. A certain slant of light returns parallel seasons past. A radio song on a winter night conjures the hot summer day of its first listening. A turn of phrase from a passerby today brings to life bygone words of a departed soul, and today I’ve handwritten the notes to preserve them.

Through mysterious combinations of intuition and urgency, both conscious and subconscious decisions follow the determining of which ideas will be gleaned for exploration. The process continues, even during moments of setting words to paper. It seems that any in-process apprehensions that ensue are due to notions that the initial jottings cannot be changed and recomposed. Of course they can, and that very thought should encourage further writing. Documentation provides a basis for expanding thoughts and aspirations. The written page becomes something of a reflection pool. Human hands miraculously serve as the intermediary instruments between soul and writing implements.

Hands are the finest, most intricate, and amenable of tools. Instruments capable of making instruments. Our hands were created for us; we haven’t made them. I’ve long thought of my own hands as inheritances from my artistic forbears. There isn’t far to look for me to notice the painters, photographers, furniture makers, tailors, and musicians that have preceded me from both sides of my family. At times, my hands remind me of the family members I most closely resemble- and of those I’ve been told I resemble. Those glimpses usually happen when I notice how I draw, or prepare food, or repair books, or handwrite. A few years ago, it occurred to me how my penmanship merges the styles of both my parents equally. My mother had taught me to write, and that made me impervious to absorbing the official writing style taught at school. Gratitude, in this regard, isn’t so much for a peculiar orthography of calligraphic vertical loops and dotted capital I’s, but more about how the letters and their application form an individual’s development.

By cultivating the human touch to concept and action alike, the soul can creatively venture out. Beyond what is crafted by hand, instruments and visual media can become extensions of operating hands, demonstrating an individual’s comprehension. But beginnings are drawn from the transcendent sensed from within. We animate the materials of our creativity and we can reshape them as well. Keeping that in mind, I’ve noticed how creative methods and tools carry their own respective and intrinsic syntax. Remembering how changing cameras affects and alters my interpretations of subject matter, I’ve found the same phenomenon with writing tools. One writer’s hands shaped to craft with different instruments will write a consistent vision from respectively different vantage points. The individual’s touch begins with formulating thoughts, but is made manifest through commanding the various materials of documentation. Not only have I found subtleties between how and what I write in pencil as compared to pen- one being more ephemeral and pressure sensitive than the other- but I’ve even noticed syntactical differences among the various typewriters I use. An awareness of what I consider “orthographic syntax” helps to free my thoughts from writing standstills.

In these pages, I’ve often clarified how instruments are means for creativity and not ends in themselves. Perhaps a similar argument can be made for human hands, if not for all material. Of late, my thoughts often turn to differences between what may be considered “sufficient” versus heights that compel conscience to engage. Fine tools and trained hands are given their justice in their dedication and use. There may even be results. Winter reminds us of life’s course, with short days of longshadowed bright sun. A life of ideas and journeys has barely enough hours for appropriate words.

Let us bring out those enshrined writing implements and set forth the manna of our best ideas. Eat on the holiday-only fine china with the good silverware on a Tuesday morning. This world of “virtual reality” can use some more counteractive and authentic expression of encouragement. Let us not permit the inheritances of our souls and hands to be lost in waves of autocomplete. Retrieve and recultivate your handwriting. Spell and sculpt your own narratives. Type on a manual machine from your shoulder muscles. Imagine visiting a town of prefab drab squared structures filled with hoarded beautiful housebuilding lumber, saws, planes, fixtures, furnishings, and chandeliers. Indeed, it is the Spirit that gives life. How about a show of hands?