Rex is one of my wisest friends (and one of the most amazing). One day I hope he gets the time (and probably finds the patience) to write the story of his life because it is one the world would be better off having around. You might recognize his name because he every so often leaves comments to my posts, such as the one for "Rummy and the Soldier."
The purpose of this post, however, is to share with you some thoughts that Rex shared with me years ago on the meaning of writing. They are insightful, thoughtful, and brilliantly spot on. I have kept them around to review every now and then. Right now, I wish to share them with you.
Frost said, "The poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom." Later he rephrased that: "Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, 'grace' metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have."
There is a line from [the film] Howard's End where the character says, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?"
This has been a major part of my life, that writing is more of a process to know what I think by seeing what I say. I have been known at certain lower-than-low-points in my writing skill to talk about the paper god. To me, the process of writing is a process of knowing.
I love his expression the "paper god." I've thought about his meaning.
Writing at its root is an evolutionary process of creation that demands unique characteristics and skills, the foremost being the ability of awareness, enhanced with a knack for seeing details, understanding and appreciating the subject matter, and the gift of creating persuasive and stimulating sentences, to name a few.
With this in mind, I like to think that the paper god grants success if you are in tune. It grants wisdom if you approach It in like manner, with wisdom, understanding, and respect. In other words, It will stay silent if you step upon Its sacred ground to taste of Its fruit of knowledge without first taking off your shoes.
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