Family

For the first time in my life, my family relationships have reached the same depths as my close friend relationships.

I am so, so happy.

Why I write

This is exactly how I feel about writing:

"I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can?t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake in real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life?s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but - just as in a dream - I can?t quite get there. I write to be happy."

- Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006 (excerpt from The Australian Financial Review Friday Dec 16 2006)

And if I were to marry someone based entirely on their writing, it would be this man:

Michael Ondaatje, in his attractive older man days (I found another picture of him online in his thirties when he was extremely attractive, but that's a bit far back.  I think he is quite old now.)

Eating and praying, a little bit of loving

I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Part travelogue, part spiritual journey, Gilbert chronicles her year of seeking pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and a balance of both in Indonesia.  I read it in two days, in between eating chocolate and, well, eating chocolate.  The experience was a mixed one.  Although I did enjoy the book, and her smart, witty and best girlfriend voice, sometimes I felt like I was reading a series of essays written by an bright but bubbly straight-A student.  Gilbert's voice is so fast and, well, talkative, it's like she's trying to squeeze a seven-hour phone conversation into one paragraph.  You can tell when she writes that she can talk the branches off a tree that she's probably not lying (I don't think that's a metaphor in the book, but that's what she seems like to me!).  On the other hand, Ms Gilbert writes very honestly, almost too honestly, about her drawn-out divorce, her tendency towards depression and her solo sexual exploits (ie. masturbation).  It was refreshing to hear about these issues in reasonable detail, but I have to admit at times I felt a bit uncomfortable with the amount of information she was sharing.  One of the surprising things about this memoir is that although I agreed with many of the revelations she made in her journey, I didn't find any of them particularly revolutionary. But the most surprising thing I felt about this book was this: although I felt that it was a good rundown of one woman's journey through travel and spiritual enlightenment, I could do better.

Maybe my sense of literacy has gotten better.  Maybe I'm just older and have already discovered many of Gilbert's revelations myself.  The best travelogue/memoir/I've-moved-to-a-European-country-for-love book I've read still remains Always French, by Sarah Turnbull.  That book is light, witty, warm and sensitive to the French way of living and the French man she is living with.   Others, including Eat, Pray, Love, when it comes to the writing style and the voice, fall literarily short.  You'll probably disagree, and fair enough.  Gilbert has won a lot of praise for her book, possibly because of some of the radical terminology she uses in her book (she uses 'God' as her word to refer to an all encompassing spirit, and frequently takes out a notepad to talk to herself/God throughout her year), and probably because of the mass hunger to find a way and means to live one's life and exploit it through a publishing phenomenon.  Gilbert's book is insightful and incredibly empowering for a young woman, and I'm grateful that she's been brave enough to chronicle her struggles as a modern, career orientated, spiritual and independent woman.  I think the book would have been much more interesting had she allowed more of these struggles to come through, rather than focussing on the travelogue nature of the book. I also really liked her delight in wordplay, especially when it came to Italian words.  She has, like Frida Kahlo, by concentrating her experiences and diving in to the collective unconsciousness, made her experiences so personal that they has become universal.

But in terms of the insights and the voice and writing style...I can do better!

On the other hand, I think she's a fantastic speaker - for me personally I find her an engaging and intriguing and I have great admiration for her - check out her speech on creativity and genius for TED.com:

Yay for Elizabeth Gilbert!

A Director Prepares, Anne Bogart (again)

In case I forget:

• Artists are individuals willing to articulate in the face of flux and transformation. And the successful artist finds new shapes for our present ambiguities and uncertainties. The artist becomes the creator of the future through the violent act of articulation. I say violent because articulation is a forceful act. It demands an aggressiveness and an ability to enter into the fray and translate that experience into expression. In the articulation begins a new organisation of the inherited landscape. pp 2-3.

• The function of art is to awaken what is asleep. How do you awaken what is asleep? According to Schklovsky, you turn it slightly until it awakens. To be awake on the stage, to distort something – a movement, a gesture, a word, a sentence – requires an act of necessary violence: the violence of undefining. p.53

• When you begin a picture, you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of the discarded finds. Otherwise, you become your own connoisseur. I sell myself nothing. (Pablo Picasso). p.54

• In an interview with The New York Times, one actor, William Hurt, said, ‘Those who function out of fear, seek security; those who function out of trust, seek freedom.’ These two possible agendas dramatically influence the creative process. […] I am convinced that the most dynamic and thrilling choices (in the rehearsal room) are made when there is a trust in the process, in the artists and in the material. […] In the face of terror, beauty is created, and hence, grace. p.83

• The creation of art is not an escape from life but a penetration into it. p.88

• Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act – a key collaborator. If your work does not sufficiently embarrass you, then very likely no one will be touched by it. p.113

• When in doubt, when you are lost, don’t stop. Instead, concentrate on detail. Look around, find a detail to concentrate on and do that. Forget about the big picture for a while. Just put your energy into the details of what is already there. The big picture will eventually open up and reveal itself if you can stay out of the way for a while. It won’t open up if you stop. You have to stay involved but you don’t always have to stay involved with the big picture. p.135

• Compression makes expression possible. Without compression there is no ex-pression. Expression happens only after compression. Expression is the result of containing, shaping and embodying the excitement that boils up inside of you. The Japanese word tameru in Noh drama defines the action of holding back, of retaining. p. 144

• When you feel ten in your heart, express seven. (Zeami) p.144

• Attitude is the key. […] Try not to think of anything as a problem. Start with a forgiving relationship to laziness and impatience and cultivate a sense of humour about them both. And then trick them. Start a task or an activity before you are ready or after you are ‘not ready’. For example, if you don’t want to sit down and write, start to write before you can begin talking yourself out of it. Or, when impatient, slow down and speed up simultaneously. One foot presses the accelerator while, simultaneously, the other foot steps on the breaks. p.148

• Allow me to propose a few suggestions about how to handle the natural resistances that your circumstances might offer. Do not assume that you have to have some prescribed conditions to do your best work. Do not wait. Do not wait for enough time or money to accomplish what yo think you have in mind. Work with what you have right now. Work wit the people around you right now. Work with the architecture you see around you right now. Do not wait for what you assume is the appropriate, stress-free environment in which to generate expression. Do not wait for maturity or insight or wisdom. Do not wait till you are sure that you know what you are doing. Do not wait until you have enough technique. What you do now, what you make of your present circumstances will determine the quality and scope of your future endeavours.

          And, at the same time, be patient. p.155

Home

It feels like everything's changed and nothing's changed.

Strange to go from my tiny little 50s retro style apartment to this big spacious family home.  It almost seems wasteful to have a staircase when really a couple of rooms could do.  For the first hour or so I was extremely pissed off at myself for zooming straight for the newspaper and television when I arrived home.  But I shouldn't have worried - I flicked through the paper and was bored a few minutes later.  It's nice to have a kettle instead of boiling water on the stove, but I'm not hugely fussed.  It's also nice/a bit sad to know that as long as I have the Internet and access to film and theatre and literature I can be happy anywhere.  We'll see what happens when I wake up tomorrow and have to deal with suburbia.  And returning to a single bed...oh man...!

My brother's hair is longer and he's got a part-time job.  When we picked him up I got a bit of a shock.  I don't know if it was because he seemed older or if it was the shock of seeing someone who looks like you.  After not having seen my brother for ages it was strange to see my reflection.  Sometimes I forget that there are other people on this earth who are like me.

Earlier today, when I was waiting to catch the bus to the airport, I went to a shopping mall to pass the time.  In the air-conditioned centre people milled around looking for a bargain.   As I dragged my suitcase through the crowds, a sudden feeling of disdain came over me.  I have always known this but the knowledge that I have never aspired to or would never want to aspire to a numbed, air-conditioned life like those led by the people around me.  I never want to measure my success by the achievements of others.  Of course I want a family and security and to love my work but I never want to judge my success by the money I earn or the number of status symbols I own.  I want to live an exciting life, a life not anaesthetised by technology, but one in which to feel my sweat on my body is to be exuding the elixir of life, one in which to feel strain in muscles is to be unlocking a deep and unchartered power, in which to concentrate one's thought on a task is to transcend the activity to the realm of enlightenment, and a life in which sleep is deep and simple and pure because it hasn't been tainted by the attention deficit speed of modern life.  I want to travel and meet new people, and discover what it's like to live in someone else's skin.  I want to discover beauty, capture it, concentrate and distill it until it shimmers with a new truthfulness.  I want to find myself in extraordinary experiences, and never take for granted the gift of life.  Then I realised that I was living that life already, and I left the shopping centre jaded by my retail experience but also beaming with excitement at my luggage dragging, sweat-exuding, muscle-straining life.