Remembering How To Live

What’s it like to live, I sometimes wonder. It’s easy to forget, especially when one takes living for granted, which many of us do in today’s world—The sound of suction drainage of a gaping wound resembles the guttural noises of a zombie protesting its infinite hunger—One gets caught up in the drudgery of existence: working a menial job, spending time on public transit, cooking meals, washing dishes and clothes and body parts, flossing and brushing teeth, etc. These things add up, and before you know it, you think you have no time for the simple pleasures.

Taking living for granted is like taking drugs. You do it more and more until you're doing it cuz it’s easy and convenient, at which point you’re not even choosing it. Rather, it’s choosing you. Drugs were my path for decades. In all that time I didn’t have to plan my day. It was already planned for me—Shambling zombie-like along a dimly lit hall in the geriatric ward, decaying bit by bit every day…Get that body to the morgue before it rots!—but of course that arrangement can’t last forever without serious atrophy of the brain, and a gradual deterioration of self-respect. Which leads to a gradual forgetting, or annihilation, of one’s self.

I’ve been clean for over a year now, and while my story isn't by any means unique, it's still my story. I’m gradually re-learning, remembering, who I am and how to live—Cancel Code Blue, cancel Code Blue—and how to treat myself with dignity and respect. I was lucky, though. I awoke from addiction staring into the beautiful face of a smart, sexy woman. And yes, I know, one must quit bad habits for one’s own sake, not for the sake of anyone else. But a smart, beautiful woman with a sense of humour and a sexy reading habit—how’s that for incentive to stay sober?

I’m a 43-year-old man who for eighteen years has worked a menial hospital support-staff job, roughly paralleling the time of my drug addiction. I don’t work with corpses, but it sometimes feels like I’m watching myself slowly become a zombie. It’s long past time to get out of this lame-duck job and get into one that’s been my passion since I was a sober teenager. I want to write and edit and work with words in an environment crackling with creativity. I am looking for a new job, but it’s taking much longer than I expected. (Nurse, how much longer will I have to wait?) I am prepared to persevere and endure the wait—and search—however long it takes.

In the meantime, I still occasionally wonder what it’s like to live—but not often. In the early days of sobriety, I would finish work and feel I had nothing to look forward to. No bottle tokes, no white Russians, no cigarettes. The longer I’ve remained sober, the more I’ve (re)discovered how to enjoy life, the more I’ve found things to look forward to—first and foremost time spent with my beautiful, smart fiancée.

Here are some of the things sobriety has taught me (Shift change! Time to give report): living is about filling in life’s cracks. It’s about doing all the things in a day, big and small, that make one feel one has used up the day such that it can be crumpled up and tossed in the garbage. Exercising, working, reading a book, writing, completing that long-neglected project, cooking and eating a meal, cleaning up afterwards, brushing one’s teeth, cutting one’s toenails, doing the banking, cutting the lawn, seeing a concert, going on a date, taking a vacation. Relearning to live is about remembering how to do these (and many other) things, and forgetting all the things that are unimportant or destructive in their extremity. The more enticements towards sober, moderate living one has—a beautiful girlfriend, a full daily itinerary—the easier it is to effectively grasp the practice of living. And the sooner one understands these things, the sooner one can start living again without taking life for granted.

Impudent Hackese: On Writing

I don’t know what I’m going to write because I haven’t written it yet.

Still.

Every great writer has written on writing, and said probably everything that needs to be said. Yet impudent hacks like myself continue to try to muscle in on their territory. Why? Because we’re impudent hacks. We think we have something to add, something fresh and vital. And perhaps we do. Usually though it’s the same old drivel, variations and permutations of impudent hackese, the kind of writing that would never see the light of day if it weren’t for cyberspace. So without further ado, here’s my nickel’s worth (adjusting for inflation and gradual eradication of the penny).

Writing is an exercise that seems simple and straightforward, but is actually a collaboration of various disciplines. First and foremost, writing is a literary endeavour. Without a fair grasp of the history or trends or rules of the written word, good luck. Although many a piece of popular writing has been perpetrated by, well, illiterates (see, for example, L. Ron Hubbard).

Second, writing is a communicative endeavour. Not only must a writer have something to communicate, but also an interesting angle from which to communicate it. Not to mention an audience to receive the communication. Ideally the audience is delighted. Occasionally though the audience dismisses the writer’s work as experimental.

Third, writing is an exercise in observation. Look around, notice details. Situations. Personalities. Responses. A and B come together to produce X. Notice it all and steal mercilessly. Take whatever serves your literary purpose, forget the rest, or file it for possibly later. Appropriate reality, translate it into words and communications.

Writing also delves into psychology. People, their motivations and ecstasies and disappointments, how the psychologies of character shape and intersect plot to advance theme. Main characters, secondary characters, even the ornamental bit player. That fleeting pedestrian’s solitary line of dialogue should evoke at least some sort of cultural dimension, some sort of psychological dimension, some sort of pathological dimension, some sort of dimension. Otherwise what’s the point of the ornament? Psychology is the human dimension within the words.

Writing is definitely a form of self-excavation, for those who use it as such. A way to orchestrate an internal dialogue. Story, poem, editorial, journal entry: all forms in which to explore personal boundaries. To give fair warning, one’s discoveries are not always pleasant. Though unpleasant discoveries make for entertaining and enlightening material. If you can summon the courage to honestly write about them, you’re halfway to being a writer.

Writing may also incorporate a degree of philosophy. The meaning of life, the meaning of meaning, the life of meaning, the Dalai Lama’s Swedish levitation coach’s existential dilemma . . . The larger questions are best addressed in print, and considering how dry and difficult some of these philosophy texts read (see, for example, Jacques Derrida), what better way to ingest philosophy than through a novel of fiction (see, for example, Ayn Rand)?

Finally, writing permits the insanity that is censored and censured in the minds of non-writers: the visualisation and actualisation of another reality, however divergent it may be from the “real” reality. This is where the real fun begins.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to chop off my pliskapoo.

*

Writers in the throes of writing tend to isolate themselves, and sometimes forget their audience, which can produce disastrous consequences. When a writer becomes his or her own audience, exclusively and without exception, it’s time to call in the legbreakers.