An Instrument for Living: How Am I Using My Words?

Very few writers treat writing [...] as an instrument for living, not as an aim in itself.

— Colin Wilson (The Outsider)

I met John earlier this year at the bar of the Wateredge Inn in Ambleside. Our ten minute encounter inspired two blog posts: One Must Imagine Marty and John Happy: Two Strangers Discuss the Absurd in an Ambleside Pub and Miserable Places: My Welsh Nightmare. In the course of our conversation John recommended a book to me. Colin Wilson’s The Outsider isn’t an easy read but several passages resonated with me. In one, the author relates the story of the Duke of Ch’i and his wheelwright. The message is that the legacy we leave behind cannot capture or convey the essence of our skills and knowledge. The essence of who we are. This is highly relevant to articles I’ve written about end of life planning, especially How Much Do You Want to Know Me? Preparing to Write My Obituary. It’s a topic I’m likely to explore further in the future. For now, I can admit that, in part at least, I write in order to leave something behind.

The second passage directly inspired the present discussion. In chapter eight, “The Outsider as Visionary,” Wilson declares that “Very few writers treat writing (as Mr. [T.S.] Eliot does) as an instrument for living, not as an aim in itself.” The line struck me as important. I copied it out, knowing I’d return to it when the moment felt right. Below the quotation I jotted down two questions. The first arises naturally from Wilson’s assertion. What does it mean to use writing as an instrument for living? The second is personal and states the central challenge for me as a writer. How am I using my words?

The distinction being drawn is between writing for writing’s sake and writing as a means of exploring what it means to be alive. Neither is necessarily better than the other, although it’s clear Wilson considers the latter more relevant to his thesis. “[B]eyond a certain point,” he declares, “the Outsider’s problems will not submit to mere thought; they must be lived.” And so, “in order to pursue the Outsider’s problems further, we must turn to men who were more concerned with living than with writing.”

I can hardly claim the success, fame, or notoriety owned by the many writers, artists, and fictional characters Wilson draws into his discussion. I’ve nevertheless long felt myself to be an outsider on a more parochial scale. I readily identify with Meursault, the central figure in Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger (L’Étranger) and have rarely felt part of any social grouping or community. In such blog posts as Belonging (Longing to Be), Finding My Tribe, Tribe and Untribe, and Being a Man: Exploring My Gender Identity for International Men’s Day, I’ve explored this aspect of who and how I am. It’s relevant that my support network comprises people who know little of one another. As I’ve written elsewhere, “If I drew my network out on paper there’d be a dot in the middle representing me, with lines radiating out to each of my supportive friends, like the spokes of a wheel.”

Articles such as these have helped me shift my perception. I now view my lack of belonging as less a personal fault or failing and more a simple statement of fact. There are circles, collections, groupings of people — and there is me, out on the periphery, looking in from the outside. They’ve also helped me to recognise that the role of the Outsider is well-established, if not always envied or lauded. It may be relevant that one of my earliest memories concerning the role of the writer was my strong identification with the poet in Ezra Pound’s “And Thus In Nineveh.”

“It is not, Raana, that my song rings hightest
Or more sweet in tone than any, but that I
Am here a Poet, that doth drink of life
As lesser men drink wine.”

It’s a relief to have a badge to wear, even if few regard it. The relief is similar to how it felt when I learned there’s a label for something I’d known of myself all my life. As I described in How Do I Feel? and How Do I Feel Now? alexithymia is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterised by an inability to recognise, express, or even describing one’s emotions. I write to discover how I feel.

Writing has always been important to me. It’s my primary method for exploring who I am and my relationship to the people, situations, and events of my life. The daily diary I’ve kept since I was fourteen, the poetry of my teens and twenties, the hundreds (thousands, surely) of letters to friends, the short stories, the chat conversations, the books, and blog posts. All these are expressions of the imperative to examine, challenge, and discover what it is to be me.

There’s a deeper dimension to the idea of writing as an instrument for living. As I described recently in a post for World Suicide Prevention Day, language has the potential to counter stigmatising and negative perspectives that make life harder for people living with mental health issues, self-harm, and suicidal thinking. It’s no hyperbole to claim that our words can change lives, even save lives. That was the primary motivation behind our book. It’s the reason I post my words here on our blog every week. We share the messy details of our lives, the joys and successes, hurts and failings and weaknesses and mistakes, in the hope they may resonate with others. It’s humbling — and profoundly validating — when that happens.

I can’t know to what extent my writing satisfies Colin Wilson’s test but I’m grateful to him — and to John for pointing me in his direction — for the challenge to examine the motives that underlie my writing. There’s an irony, of course, in using writing to respond to that challenge, but what alternative do I have? Outsider or not, it’s how I record, reflect, and connect with myself and the world around me. I’m good with that.

 

Photo by Annie Spratt for Unsplash.