Jane Austen had a problem in not having a quiet place to write

Jane Austen had a problem in not having a quiet place to write

 

Jane Austen had a problem in not having a quiet place to write. She did ok, but really she had to continually pick up and leave off. Additionally, she had a limited palette of social situations to take inspiration from. The affairs of the masculine world of world political power were off limits, and so she was forced into the role of being an ironist. I would dearly love to write something me and my readers could sink my/their teeth into, but due to Economics and social surroundings, and being mired in the world of children and goody two shoes as a school teacher what can I do? Additionally, of course, there is living in the postmodern world where one is continually distracted and frankly my concentration span is not that good. Not to mention the weakness of my will. Nietzsche would’ve found a way, but even he chose the aphorism. So what? I guess the problem is me and me in this time and me in this place. Additionally, I live in a world where the only people who would read my best work would be people in Ivory Towers and no offence, but Fuck them. Fuck them. I don’t know, is that fair? And if I wrote not in a hurry I would have proceeded along a steadier course where such targeting of hypothetical readers was unnecessary. So then, some situation, either social or psychological or both creates this mess. I am trying to get to the heart of something. That is always my aim, in as little time as possible because no I don’t think your concentration span would only last that long, or do I? No, frankly I have no patience, because of MY concentration span:  my muse is impatient. Thus I have a muse, because I cannot be bothered exploring my writing motivations in greater depth and so: to shorthand. I am an essentialist, who quite frankly doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously, like most of you television and internet watchers. Nevertheless I write. It’s a bug that’s bitten me. Again: shorthand. Poetry. Adorno said that poetry has outlived its used-by-date, but so did Plato, millennia ago. Ugh. Somehow, nevertheless, I trust it. As an impatient man would. I am clearly not then, wise, but then again if you look at the actual ideas of most philosophers as pertaining to ‘how to live’ they’re not that wise either. Great writers, yes, great logicians, but invariably their partisanship to an argument is dangerous. Because people experience a sense of awe when reading and surrender to them. Not me, I only surrender to my own ineptitude. I do not believe in myself. I only believe in things that cannot be said. Like what the wind says, like what a third of a bottle of scotch says, like what my wife says, like lines I like in a song, in films, in poems, in books of philosophy, ha!, the occasional dream, people I’ve met, observations from what is called ‘life’. I am an amateur – as my Irish father would’ve said before his tongue was taken: a blatherskite. I am not to be trusted, at least not in the capacity as a writer. Alas all I can do is provoke. Faithless one might say. But no I would rebut, I have great faith. Just not in any single code. Certainly not enough to write anything grand. But then is this a kind of grand belief. In the ineffable. Therefore in the sublime, in the ecstatic? That worries me, because as I haven’t said here, I am wary of our Western World’s obsession with the sublime. People become immune to the ordinary, the humble, which our ancestors dearly respected. Robbie Burns and Kobayashi Issa etc. No, we seem addicted to the ecstatic, us Westerners. Or is that all too convenient? and is it only really me? “Don’t write then!”, I hear the chorus cry. Again shorthand. No, I am that chorus too, who says no, better not to attempt anything too grand. Have a scotch. And so. And so. A bumbler is me. All out of the desire to be ‘free.’ Or to escape scott-free. Or am I just playing for rhymes. Surely, the question requires deeper investigation? I’m not a writer then. At least I’m not a good one. One should have intellectual integrity, my mate George is always complaining. Still I write. Out of boredom, the bug that bit me, my muse that is as blatherous as it is impatient. I write because it is the only thing that eases my ache. The ache unto death. I think sickness is going too far. Trust me Soren I get laughs. Kierkegaard should’ve drunk more, danced more, laughed more. At dumb shit. That’s it too: I don’t want to enter so deep into a work that I cannot exist outside of it and laugh at silly things. Fear then? That it would change me? That love wouldn’t be enough to pull me out of the Divine Comedy? Then maybe I do have the capacity? Getting closer. But then we fall into moralism. What one OUGHT to do and all that. I sound like a panelist on the ABC! Shit haven’t we had enough of that? Man, I’ve realized I don’t want to know and frankly if I ever got past blathering preambles, maybe I’d write something good. Clearly, if I’ve done my job, you’d know that that’s something I have no desire to do. I just wanna bitch and moan. Cheap. Cheapskate. But look! The sun is setting and I’ve missed another one. Frankly, take me inside a Turner sky and let me be like an albatross and fly! I wish like posthumous Jimi Hendrix to touch the last rays of the setting sun.

 Damn, something called me to proofread and now it's basically dark outside! That motivation is also worth further investigation, were I inclined. But I really want to get up off this chair and walk the dogs...

P.S. 40 minutes later... I realised on the nightwalk, that these can captivate too, as it did me and the dogs and also that Hendrix posthumously didn't say that, dead or living...

©Malachi Doyle 2022.