What is Reality?
What is the truth?
I'm thinking now of the writer whose self-concept depends on authencity. Does this describe you? It describes me.
Perhaps I'm more comfortable writing fiction than non-fiction because I worry that non-fiction has to be completely "true," detail by detail, and I drive myself mad trying to get all the details "right."
I'm finding more and more that I don't know how to tell "the truth." I only know how to tell "my truth." And in telling "my truth," I find myself constantly departing from facts and into the realm of mythology. I believe there is so much truth in myths.
A wonderful poem by Rabia al Basri explains the difficulties of writing from the heart, of writing, to, for, out of, or about the Divine source (by Divine source, I mean that mysterious place our creativity and imagination comes from):
REALITY
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
"In whose presence you are blotted out..." This is very much what Yolen means, I think, about the self falling away.
6 comments:
I am smack in the midlle of a 10-pp. paper on how what God wants most is for us to be our authentic selves. Very Ignatian tonight, Theresa.
My very first psychology professor (now sadly deceased) had a favorite point he would make over and over again. If five or so people were all called as eye-witnesses to the same car accident, and all viewed it from the same place, you would still get five different stories. Reality is mired deeply in perspective, and in that sense, I think fiction is as "real" as non-fiction. Your choice of fiction is a wonderful one for you, Theresa - it works on so many levels and allows you to be free.
And what a lovely poem. It says it all, doesn't it?
Vicky
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vxv789/
What is reality? It is your way of seeing life.
Rashoman.
V
"One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay. He is in love with the whole of that reality, and will not willingly be deprived even of the most insignificant fragment of it - just like the lovers and men of ambition we described earlier on. "(Plato, 380BC)
"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is."
Nadine Gordimer
"All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened."
Ernest Hemingway
"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see-it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life."
Robert Penn Warren
But finally, as we move into the holidays, overwork, stress, and blast through chaos, space and time searching for sustainable energy and moments, to generate enduring myths and memories for our families- remember-
"Housework can kill you if done right."
Erma Bombeck
ggw07@aol.com
Andre Malraux in his ANTI-MEMOIRS quotes St. Augustine, I believe.
'THE LIES PEOPLE TELL ABOUT THEMSELVES ARE OFTEN MORE REVEALING THAN THE TRUTH'
... a paraphrase
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