The meaning of writing

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” - Toni Morrison

I have now written and rewritten this first post for my blog 3 times, each time from a completely different angle, and each time I feel slightly dissatisfied. So now, I will simply write, I won’t remove my writing anymore.

I have decided to write a blog post, and hopefully I will keep doing this on at least a monthly basis. Or perhaps, it’s better to say that I simply will. I’m not sure, I find things like this tough, but I think it’s an important thing to do for me.

So, in this version of the post, I just want to make you understand a bit of what has led me to start writing. To understand me better, to judge whether I’m worth your time, and for myself, to actually understand why I am writing right now.

This idea of writing has been in the back of my mind for half a year, or so. Back then I was very worried about duty and all kinds of things related to that. I saw myself as the archetype of the “sage” and the most important duty of the sage is to teach, of which I did little, if anything.

I started to think about duty, about archetypes and so on, because I had a bit of a religious experience. Since my teens I’ve experienced a profound lack of meaning, perhaps because I abandoned the Christian God I was raised with. All I know for sure is that since I walked away from that I’ve been trying to fill this hole somehow. First, I tried to cling to science as a kind of religion, but that’s not what it was designed for. So, I felt hopelessly empty and felt into nihilism with thoughts such as "nothing matters in the first place". At some point I started to believe, or rather hoped, that there was something that did matter, but that I just didn’t know what that exactly was. I would say that my current state is similar to that but it’s somewhat concretizing. Anyway, I’ll leave that for another post.

Back to this religious experience, which was about half a year ago. I watched this show called Orb: On the movement of the Earth, I couldn’t help but feel that that was meaningful. It’s a show about the heliocentric theory and passing this theory on while being chased by the catholic church, which judges this theory to be blasphemy. I felt inspired by the characters in this show, the ways in which they sacrificed their lives for the greater good, the ways in which they followed through with what they believed in, the way in which they followed their fates.

It was in this context that I looked at this list of archetypes from Carl Jung and saw the “Sage” and “Rebel” archetype, and felt this reflected my relationship with religion, this relationship which was so beautifully reflected in that show.

So, I decided to write because I’m a sage and so that was my duty. However, in these last couple months my beliefs have changed, and I don’t think I stand behind such reasoning anymore. Right now, I feel a kind of pull to this idea of writing. I can think of all kinds of good reasons why I should be writing: teaching, inspiring, reflecting, but the real reason right now is that there’s this pull to it, one I can’t really resist. I don’t like such reasoning either, it feels too simplistic for a hyper-intellectual spirit like me, but I suppose it usually is a cliché like this.

In future posts I will dive more into my current views on duty, meaning, etc. for I’ve gathered some insights on that topic that I really want to share, but by no means is that what I intend to write about constantly.

So, what do I intend to write about?

I would like to write about anything I’m interested in at that particular moment, something I call the three Ps of understanding: Physics, Philosophy and Psychology. Of these, I only really have a good understanding of one, which is physics, as I’m a graduate physics student. So stay tuned to have me talking about philosophy and psychology with a great amount of confidence even though I might be horribly wrong!

I wanted to give you a kind of view in the way I think through this text, as I think this is the best indicator of judging whether someone is worth your time. I feel like I didn’t talk about enough of my thoughts, but I suppose it was a little too ambitious anyway.

I would like to close this first post off with my main philosophy for writing this: even though I’ve talked a lot about you as the reader, I will always place myself first, I think. This project is mainly for me. Also, this reminder is mostly for myself, so I don’t lose myself as I continue to write. However, I believe that the people who prioritize their integrity are also the ones who help the most people, so I don’t think you should be all that worried as a reader!

The sage laid down his pen and let out a solemn sigh. He felt that his writing wasn’t enough just yet. “It’s my first time” he told himself, although it felt more like an excuse than like a reason. He was staring at the piece of paper, as he felt a great amount of resistance to folding it up and placing it into the envelope. His gaze averted to the pendulum which he kept on his desk at all times and moved the iron sling from its point of equilibrium and let it go. It swayed left and right, left and right, left and right. The pendulum would always move in this same predictable manner, and the sage found great peace in that. His eyes followed the golden sphere attached to the string as he let his mind wander, something he rarely dared to do. Images overflowed his mind, images of his youth, images of his work, images of his desires, and finally, images of why he started this letter in the first place. He once more let out a sigh, although this one seemed more so of spirit than of solemn as he braced himself to send this letter to his dearest student, and master.

Inspirations:

• Jungian archetypes
• Orb: On the movement of the Earth