blog zen
“I just never knew that so much went into organizing a wallet. I would assume that an afternoon with a three year old would produce more material.”
– Senora Juego, in an astute comment on yesterday’s post.
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I’ll be the first to admit that, when I write nearly a thousand words about wallet maintenance, it’s not because I’m wildly passionate about the subject. Instead, it’s what happens when, sitting down at the computer, I realize I have absolutely nothing to say.
***
Writers block is a fact of writing. Anyone who writes regularly, who routinely starts new pieces from scratch, has – at least on occasion – faced the terrifying nothingness of a white screen or blank piece of paper.
Novelists bitch and moan about it, drink themselves to death as a result. Working journalists, conversely, tend to simply slog their way through, quality be damned; a deadline’s coming, they ain’t gettin’ paid unless they turn in two thousand words, and so they might as well just put something onto paper.
And, in that sense, we webloggers are nearly journalists. The deadlines may be internal, driven by a sense of obligation to regular posting. But they weigh down none the less. The blank screen looms, and we simply write the first thing that pops into our heads. Quality be damned.
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Often, when I talk to people who’ve just taken up blogging, they’ll tell me that they don’t intend to blog for long. They’ll simply go until they’ve told all the stories they’ve, for years, wanted to tell. And then they’ll quit.
Invariably, this never happens. Through the process of blogging, they come to realize that, in our small daily adventures, the minute facets of our lives, there are literally thousands upon thousands of stories and speculations to tell and share. We could never possibly run out.
And yet, day by day, it’s often difficult to see those facets and adventures. They’re too small to us, too constant, too much a part of life.
***
There is an old Koan about a young monk who, seeking enlightenment, asks Master Dae-Ju to tell him the path to Zen. Dae-Ju replies, ìZen is very easy. When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep.î
We spend all of our lives doing things without really doing them. We go through the motions. We walk through our parts. But are we really present?
If this is the path to Zen, it’s also the path to blogging well. To find material, we needn’t change what we do, merely the way we do it. Fully experience each day, and surely in each lies a story worth telling.
Of course, like any truth, it’s easier advice to mouth than to follow. Unlike Zen, though, blogging provides constant feedback in that pursuit, a daily test of how well we’ve stuck to the course of fully living. Do I have a story to tell? And, if not, is it really because nothing happened to me in the past twenty-four hours? Or is it because so much happened that I somehow missed it all, even as I marked my way through?
***
Keeping a weblog, then, is easy. When inspired, write; when finished, stop. Live through today. Return tomorrow. You’ll doubtless be inspired to write again.