BELIEF AND CERTAINTY
Where Ideas Go for Escape
On a cool summer night, as I find myself alone on the end of a dock under the stars, the world seems to slow to a stop. The cool air seemingly slows to a halt and the humming of insects begins a slight crescendo in the background. Birds that once sang and flew over the water begin a retreat to their night’s resting place. A soothing calm settles over the water. Yet, even as I notice all of these things, many of them quickly fade from my immediate consciousness. They begin to slip deeper and deeper into the recesses of the past as my imagination begins to wander. My mind doesn’t wander because it’s bored of the peaceful setting. Nor does it wander because it fails to recognize the surrounding landscape. My mind wanders because of what is directly above in the starlit sky. My mind wanders because it wants escape.
The night sky gives me escape – a release of sorts. The person who sits on the end of the dock looking straight ahead remains stuck in the realities of the world around him. The person who looks up at the stars does not. I cannot think of a time where I have looked up and thought of banality and boredom. Not once have I looked up and been limited in what I can or cannot think. There are few places that give me this freedom, with the dock and the night sky being one of them. You see, the sheer complexity of the sky’s sprawling nature allows me to disconnect from complete understanding. In many respects, this is certainly somewhat unsettling: I cannot grasp everything that is going on and I certainly cannot understand the rules that govern these interactions. But for every bit of discomfort this causes, I find even more ease. I am perfectly ok feeling lost in the depths of my imagination. I am perfectly ok chasing questions that don’t have definitive answers. Not surprisingly, I have a hard time finding this feeling anywhere, let alone in bustling everyday life. It is not often you get a moment alone to think, imagine, explore, and ponder.
But strangely enough, I can find this same feeling in writing as well. When I sit down to start writing, it is no different than when I am at the dock under the stars. My mind can escape into a place where there are simply no foreseeable limits. I do not have to abide by any set of rules that governs my thoughts. I do not have to remain stuck in the constraints of reality. What I do have are abstractions and ideas and questions and an utterly limitless horizon with which to use them. I can take the jumbled mess of thoughts that I have and finally give them release. It doesn’t matter how well these ideas are strung together – or even how well they are articulated. They are simply thoughts splattered across a page that have a significant meaning to me, and this gives incredible autonomy in situations where I wouldn’t have it otherwise.
Perhaps writing’s greatest gift to me is this freedom to do, think, and say as I please. But to say that this is all it has to offer is short-sighted. Writing is a process – a process not with a concrete beginning and end, but an exploration that is a constant stream of thoughts and ideas. As a younger student, I never understood this. In fact, I would cringe at the very thought of having to write. I always felt like I was trapped, confined by the structured and stringent grading system of high school papers. Every paper required a predetermined beginning, middle, and end. Every paper had a discernable right and wrong way of going about writing it. Every last part of every last paper was dictated by the rules. I knew that writing was a unique creative medium, but I was never allowed the freedom to utilize it. And this was maddeningly frustrating. It was like sitting at the end of the dock without ever being able to look up at the stars and explore the night sky. I was simply trapped in tunnel vision, looking blankly ahead over the still water.
However, my distaste for the rules wasn’t necessarily because of the rules as an institution. Truthfully I was perfectly able to adhere to the strict “bullet-point” grading rubric that my teachers used – and in many respects, my assignments were easier because of them. My rejection of the rules stemmed from the fact that they didn’t allow me to fulfill the writing’s potential. They just simply didn’t permit me to explore more complex and creative works. I had all these ideas that I wanted to come to life, but was never given the chance to implement them. You see, the rules gave me something I already had a good grasp on. Rather than repeating the same kinds of assignments to no end, I wanted something complex enough that I had to wrestle with its ideas. I wanted a disconnect between what I thought I knew and what was actually happening. I wanted to be able to work in the mystery of bigger, more complex ideas.
Of course my thoughts have changed quite significantly since my high school days. I’ve been encouraged to take a look up – to engage a newfound sense of freedom. The rules that once oversimplified my perspective have since been lifted. In my current writing, I do not need a formulaic beginning, middle, and end. I don’t need a concrete thesis sentence. Even if the answer doesn’t have a definite conclusion, all I need is a question and a desire to pursue its answer.
I like to think that this pursuit helps organize my thoughts. And more often than not, I find that this process is what leads to some sort of discovery. Whether it be in finding meaning, purpose, or understanding, writing gives me a very succinct way of streamlining thoughts that would otherwise have no medium of expression. Perhaps this is a bit selfish, in that writing essentially provides me a soapbox to say whatever comes to mind: the simple act of putting my thoughts and my writing on paper is surely somewhat of an ego-driven premise. But I write because there are so many things that compel me to continue. I can never pinpoint exactly one thing that creates this perpetual incentive, but the culmination of many different things is what makes writing so enticing. There is something defining about putting my thoughts on paper. It truly captures my thoughts and imagination in the rawest and purest of forms. It is a completely unique medium that provides a much needed escape and a much needed framework to meld my ideas. No matter what I write about or how I write about it, I always find a very personally defining experience as well as a great sense of satisfaction.
And perhaps above all, that is what I love most.