The Last Post

How lovely it is to do something for its own sake

As any storyteller knows, going back to the beginning is one of the simplest ways to draw something to a close. So as I reach the final piece in this series, I find my mind turning back to where I started. That is a useful thing to do anyway. Nothing in life ever unfolds quite how I expect it to (thank goodness) so there is always something to be gained from looping back and looking at what actually happened, in the light of what I thought might happen.

I began by saying I was ‘thinking out loud’. I was curious (I said): “to see what I write about and whether new patterns emerge, I return to old ones, or it is all just a bit random”.

In the event there was a bit of each. I wrote pieces about how I relate to time - a familiar theme from my book on pause. I wrote about different ways of knowing, something I explore in my work at Oxford. Some of the pieces were sparked off by the novelty of travel, others were a re-examination of the familiar. Sometimes I used the act of writing to re-visit an experience from the past and make new sense of it, years later (nothing, it turns out, is ever really over).

Alongside this it did feel like there was something new. I can only sense it obliquely, but digging into the details of the everyday seemed to shed light on deeper shifts and changes that are happening at this stage of my life. It wasn’t just me that noticed this. A couple of readers (who know me well) told me that they felt there was something different in this writing, or in me, or both.

To ‘think out loud’ is to write for myself. That means following my own curiosity, not trying to guess what will be of interest to a reader. But it is not like writing a diary or a journal. Writing as if someone will read it is where the discipline kicks in¹. It forces me to pay attention to what I am crafting. The words ‘as if’ have magic in them, they are a springboard for the mind. Act as if and you can explore something for real - whether it is true or not. This applies to far more than writing.

I had to keep coming back to myself. If I didn’t, it was easy to slip into saying vague things about ‘the world’ or ‘us’ (whatever, or whoever that might be) and before I knew it I would fall into issuing facile recommendations about what ‘you’ (i.e. someone that is not me) ought to do. It is so much easier to tell others what to do, than to ask yourself: ‘what part of this is my own?’.

This reminds me of the Dialogue Circles I attended at Portland State University in 1996 (a class that clearly had a lasting effect on me). A dialogue circle is a form of collective thinking and speaking where one of the practices is to ‘speak from the I’. Instead of saying “you know how, when you turn up late you feel embarrassed…” the encouragement is to say “when I turn up late I feel embarrassed”. That creates space for other people to have their own response. Maybe they aren’t embarrassed by being late (after all, they might be Spanish). That was the discipline I tried to adopt and though it may sound simple, in practise I found it quite slippery. For example, at times I had concerns about being narcissistic. At least, that is what I would tell myself, but then I would wonder if that was just an excuse, to wriggle off the hook of working out what it is that I actually think or feel.²

There were pieces I thought would be boring to other people. The one about sanding (and oiling) the worktop I almost didn’t post, as it felt both too dull and too intimate at the same time. And yet, in response to it someone said: “thank you for writing this; writing for you, turns out to be writing for me too.” It turns out I have absolutely no idea what people will make of what I post. This is liberating - if I can’t tell what people will think, why bother trying to guess?

There is something wonderful about being able to write like this at all. Amidst the constant (and understandable) lament about the havoc that technology can wreak on our mental health, it feels important to notice and acknowledge that it isn’t all bad. Having the chance to put my words out into the world, for whoever feels minded to read them, is a delightful thing. Despite all the noise and bluster about it, I don’t have to learn or follow the rules of how this medium is meant to ‘work’ and I am sure there are many different ways it ‘works’ anyway. I don’t have to shout if I don’t want to. I don’t have to have something to sell or convince you of. I don’t have to try to get you to keep you coming back (maybe once was enough?). And I don’t need anyone’s permission or approval to do any of that. It is an inviting opportunity and one that I really appreciate.

As so often happens, writing like this has also turned out to be useful in ways I didn’t imagine. The occasional glimpses of what other people make of, or with, what I say is fascinating in itself. And beyond the specific ideas in any of the pieces, it has made me think about what it is like to do something for its own sake³ and where else in my life I could usefully do that. Whatever I do with that, I am sure I will be back here again in a few months time, curious to see what happens next. Maybe you will be too, but whether you are or not, heartfelt thanks for having the curiosity and the patience to follow along with something that isn’t designed to lead you anywhere in particular, but which simply stops, right here.

1. As Carlo Navato said to me recently “half the job is the act of writing, the other half is putting it out for scrutiny”.

2. The Spanish have a lovely phrase for taking a position, which is ‘mojate’. Unfortunately, the literal translation of this is to ‘wet yourself’…

3. I learnt last week that there is a word in Hebrew for this. ‘Lishma’ means ‘for its own name’, that is, out of genuine devotion to the thing itself rather than trying to get something else, or somewhere else.